


Cut All the Flowers

by smugrobotics



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Emotional Non-Con, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:34:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smugrobotics/pseuds/smugrobotics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, John Blake thought Bruce Wayne might be his soul mate.</p>
<p>He wasn't.</p>
<p>Now he's gone and John is trying his hardest to fill the Batman shaped void left behind in Gotham. He's too busy to even worry about finding his other half until, in the sewers of Gotham, his other half finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

While Bruce Wayne was the favorite topic of conversation among the orphans, soul mates were a close second. Each child had their own ideas about who theirs would be, and their fantasies ranged from the physical (“Blonde hair, blue eyes, and tits out to here,” Eddie, a boy close to John’s age had crowed, his hands held out in front of his chest, miming a size that John was pretty sure nature had never intended.), the personal (John had heard pretty much every career thrown around. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, business moguls – the sky was the limit. Never cops, though.) and the situational (and man, the kids got elaborate with how they thought it would happen. There was one common thread – never at the orphanage. No kid wanted another orphan for a soul mate). 

John would like to say that he was different, more practical, less caught up in the fantasy, but that would be a lie. Yeah it was rare, the world too big these days to really allow chance meetings of soul mates to happen with any regularity. The rich could seek out a mating service, travel, increase the odds a bit, but for a kid like John...to say it was unlikely was an understatement.

But he was a kid, and kids don’t care about population size or matching statistics. Kids can ignore the reality and focus on the possibility, orphans more than most. Because, when it came down to it, meeting your soul mate meant more than just finding your other half. It meant finding family, too.

So yeah, he thought about it. Unlike the other orphans, though, John kept his fantasies to himself. 

And if he talked more about Bruce Wayne than the other kids, found ways to work the billionaire into completely unrelated conversations, well. That was his own business. The other kids didn’t need to know that, for John Blake, fantasizing about soul mates and talking about Bruce Wayne were one in the same. 

***

“What can I do for you, officer?”

John’s eyes tracked Bruce Wayne as he entered, the rest of him still, consciously keeping the nerves clogging up his body at bay as the other man limped into the room. John spoke without following his own words too closely, his attention fixed on Wayne, on his eye line. On trying to catch it.

John was an adult now, and St. Swithin’s was a long time ago. He’d berated himself for the tight ball of tension that had sat heavy in his gut on the ride over, there for all the wrong reasons. Gordon needed the Batman. Gotham needed the Batman. There were more important things right now than some stupid dream that had made the nights seem more bearable at the orphanage. 

None of that reasoning did anything to stop Blake from keeping his eyes on Wayne’s face, determinedly staring until Bruce had finally met his gaze. 

The tension, the nerves had disappeared then, replaced by nothing more than the cold flush of disappointment. 

As he’d driven back to his beat, he’d told himself it didn’t matter. It’d been a stupid pipe dream of an angry kid, something he should have grown out of years ago. He hadn’t slammed his hands on the steering wheel, or broken down, or any other melodramatic bullshit. He’d gone back to his work and shoved it all down – just one more thing for the mask to cover. 

He wasn’t given much time to dwell on it. Soon there was chaos. The occupation. The bomb.

Soon, there was Bane.

***

Oddly, as much as Bane was on Blake’s mind during the occupation (and he was on his mind everyday – it was impossible to walk through the streets of Gotham without Bane’s shadow looming over you) he’d only seen him the one time, on a television screen. 

It made sense, he guessed. Blake had done his level best for five months to avoid the patrols, and the courts, and the ice. There’d been some damn close calls, but somehow, the luck that had seemed absent from John’s life for so long had held. 

Staring up at the, huge, sprawling expanse of the cave, John wondered just how long it could.

He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d opened the bag and found the coordinates and the rappelling gear. John had some ideas, of course. A handful of images had flicked through his mind as he’d set up the rope and swung in. The one that kept popping up (and kept being stubbornly shoved to the back of John’s mind each time it did) was Bruce Wayne, alive and well, smiling at John for answering his invitation.  
The cave was almost better. 

When John had pictured what Batman’s base of operations, he’d always thought it would have been in some state of the art facility, chrome everywhere, computerized walls –all the fancy crime fighting paraphernalia John expected from the movies. The cave was a surprise, but it fit more than anything John’s imagination had come up with. 

The first day went by in a blur of exploration. It was hard for John to think much past the overwhelming excitement clouding his senses as he walked the raised platforms, touching every piece of equipment he found. John laughed in shock as he stepped onto another platform and saw the water tight casing rise and unfold into a computer. The password was easy enough (R-O-B-I-N-J-O-H-N-B-L-A-K-E, his third guess) but the interface took some getting used to. He was disappointed to find little to nothing left on the server. It wasn’t like he’d expected some sort of ‘Batman’s Guide to Vigilantism”, but the lack of any information had the doubt crouched at the back of his mind creeping closer. 

By the time John was halfway through the hour long ride home, the doubt was no longer creeping, it was there, bold and flashing in his mind’s eye.

How the hell was some street kid turned rookie cop, turned detective, turned ex detective going to fill the Batman shaped hole in Gotham?

John needed help.

***

One of the first things to go after Gordon and the Dent Act had cleaned up Gotham was the funding for self-protection programs. After the terrorist attack on the city and the mass escape from Blackgate Prison, Gotham was once again topping out the Most Dangerous Cities in America lists, but unfortunately, the funding hadn’t returned. There wasn’t much left in the way of free self-defense classes – at least not much of use to John. The ‘aim for the groin and run’ classes at the YMCA weren’t really going to help with what he needed.

There were some paid classes that looked a little better. So far he’d found muay thai, krav maga, and good old fashioned karate. The thing was, John didn’t have much of a steady paycheck these days, and the small subsidy the government was giving out to help people make ends meet and get back on their feet following the occupation wasn’t even enough to cover his rent without dipping into his meager savings. 

Lessons cost money. YouTube, however, was free.

John started training, if you could call it that. He copied the katas, blocks, and holds on the instructional videos as best as he could, repeating them over and over in his cramped living room, until he was soaked with sweat and had them burned into his memory. 

Calisthenics were easier. Following the Academy program had whipped him into shape once, no reason it wouldn’t manage it a second time.  
He ran the streets of Gotham, scaled chain link fences, climbed fire escapes – anything he could think that might prepare him for the task at hand.

It wasn’t enough. John was an idealist, sure, but he wasn’t an idiot. He was going to get his ass handed to him on the streets if he came up against anything more than a small gang. He’d have to start small, if he wanted any chance at all. 

Start small. Right. John could do this.

A month after his first visit, and sick of putting it off, John spent almost all of his remaining savings on a lightweight Kevlar vest, some knee pads, and, after some hesitation, a domino mask. 

Then he returned to the cave.

***

Things were going…better than expected.

The first week had been a brutal learning curve. In his first fight, John had found out that Kevlar may keep a knife from slicing your insides, but a gash to the arm would still slow you down. The lessons just kept on coming after that. He learned that dropping down onto would-be muggers from above was harder than it looked, but that the element of surprise it gave you was worth the effort. He also learned which holds and counters worked in the real world, and which were better left in training. 

John was surprised by how much he was enjoying his new role. The nights were punishing and painful, but each time he returned home restless, adrenaline thrumming through him and wanting nothing more than to go back out and do what he could for a few more hours. As much as he craved being out on the streets, though, he still had responsibilities as John Blake. His mornings were either spent doing odd jobs around the city for some extra cash, or at St. Swithin's. Even with the new grounds and buildings donated by the Wayne Estate, there were too many kids for all of them to live outside the city. St. Swithin's kept some of the overflow, along with a few other homes in the area. There were a lot more orphans in Gotham these days.

Every Wednesday and Friday afternoon John went down to volunteer his time. Three hours in the job training program and one ‘coaching ball’, which was basically just a cover for shooting hoops and talking trash with the kids.

If they noticed the extra bruises and new stiffness he moved with these days, they didn’t mention it. 

It was after one of his Wednesday sessions that Father Reilly took him aside, brow knit with the weary concern so often on his face. 

"Alex hasn’t come home for three days,” he said softly, closing the door to the office behind them. John frowned. Alex was one of ‘his’ kids, a regular in the group of boys that followed after him on his visits. He was fifteen years old, gregarious, and yeah, a trouble maker - but no more so than any other teenage boy. 

“Did something happen? I just saw him last Friday, he seemed fine.” John strained his memory, thinking back to his last visit, trying to remember if anything seemed off. John had been nursing a sprained wrist at the time, remembered Alex giving him crap, asking if he’d hurt it jerking off. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Father Reilly shook his head and leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed off to the side. He’d been avoiding John’s eyes a lot since the situation on the bridge. Guilt, maybe. John let it be. The Father was a good man, they’d all lost their heads a little with the threat of a nuclear bomb hanging over them. He’d get over it in time.

“From what I’ve been able to gather from the other boys, Alex and Darryl went out, Alex didn’t come back. Darryl’s not saying anything about it to me,” Father Reilly did meet John’s eyes, then, “I thought he might talk to you.”

John nodded, not needing to be asked twice. He searched the home for Darryl, checking the kitchen, game room, and finally finding him in the laundry room, perched on a dryer that shook noisily beneath him as it ran. Darryl was a quiet kid, eager to be included in what was going on, but not always knowing how best to fit in. He had few friends, craved attention from the other boys, but seemed to only get roped in when a fall guy was needed. He wasn’t the sort to buck authority. John’s worry deepened.

Darryl glanced up as John hopped beside him onto an inactive dryer, shoulders stiffening as though bracing for a blow. He’d probably guessed that Reilly would send John his way. The kid may be shy, but he wasn’t stupid.

“I figure trying to act like I’m just here to shoot the shit is a waste of time, huh Darryl?” John asked, scooting back a bit on the dryer and staring ahead, watching the kid shift in his peripheral vision. He waited a beat for a response, continuing on when none came. “Thing is, Father Reilly thinks you might be able to help us find Alex. I know you’d never want anything bad to happen to one of your friends, so I gotta wonder, what could be so terrible that you’d let the good Father sweat like that?”

A flinch, Darryl curled forward, still determinedly quiet. 

“Maybe,” John considered for a moment before forging ahead, “maybe Father Reilly doesn’t need to know. Maybe this is something you and I can talk about without getting the cops involved afterward. Maybe I know someone else who can help. Someone who’s not a cop.” John knew about the rumors the other kids had spread, about his role in the liberation, about him knowing Batman. And John knew more than a few of the kids refused to believe Batman had really bit it in the fight, especially with the recent rumors of a new vigilante in town. His suspicions that Darryl was among this number were confirmed when he finally glanced up, his expression flickering between doubt, confusion, and hope. 

Darryl held John’s gaze as he struggled to find his words, John not looking away until the boy finally spoke, his voice little more than a whisper. “He couldn’t kill him once, Mr. Blake. Now’s not gonna be any different.”

God help him, Blake didn’t get it right away. Then clarity struck him, sinking like a stone in his gut. 

Shit.


	2. Chapter 2

Maybe it was naïve to expect that the Batman had taken care of Bane before his big exit. He’d never been found, sure, but the common thought was that Bane and the Batman had had their showdown somewhere private, and Bane’s corpse had been left for the rats. 

There was a joke in there about sewers and rats and irony, but picturing the greatest international terrorist still in the heart of Gotham kind of put a damper on your sense of humor.

After that first trickle of information, Darryl had opened up, spilling the whole story. He and Alex had gone down to the sewers, wanting to see if they could find something left over by Bane’s gang or the cops, a trophy of sorts to show to the other boys. They’d gotten turned around and ended up deeper than they’d planned. Alex had found a runoff, thought it might have led to an exit, but it bottomed out in a medium sized chamber, empty except for a pile of rocks.

“Rocks?” John had asked, puzzled. “Like debris from the blasts?”

“No,” Darryl shook his head, “like somebody stacked it that way.”

Darryl had been afraid, hanging back in the entryway, but Alex, bold, irrepressible Alex had gone in, peering around the rock pile, and yelling back to Darryl, teasing him for being a pussy. 

That’s when Bane had descended on them like a nightmare. 

Darryl hadn’t seen much once he realized who the hulking mass was, but he heard the screams well enough as he ran, as well as the terminal, sickening crunch. 

The fear Blake had been nursing since Bane had been mentioned had nothing on the anger that came over him then. Alex was a good kid. He’d deserved better than and execution in the sewers for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the last time this was going to happen.

Bane wasn’t getting any more of his boys. 

***

If someone, for some reason, had searched John’s apartment, they might have raised an eyebrow at the sheer amount of information he had collected on Gotham’s layout. Well, they’d probably be more bothered by the mask, the bloodied clothes, and various other trappings of vigilantism currently spread throughout his home, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, John had maps – topographical, road, ward, zoning, utility – you name it, he probably had it. A week into the occupation, John had broken into the city planner’s office (well, he’d walked in – the door and windows had already been busted by looters) and made off with as many maps as he could carry. After the city had come back under control, John had seen no reason to return them.

Down in the sewers, in the near dark with only the shine of his penlight and the little bit of natural light streaming down from the manhole covers to see by, John’s maps weren’t coming in as useful as he’d hoped. 

He’d gone back to St. Swithin’s the day before and had had Darryl point out the approximate location of the attack. John had spent the last two hours silently walking the labyrinthine area, baffled by his inability to find the outflow Darryl had described, and trying not to let the righteous anger he felt filling him be replaced by a weaker sort of frustration, or worse yet, relief. 

Not that John had much use for his anger. As much as his caveman-lizard brain entertained thoughts of attacking Bane and beating him bloody for Alex and Jimmy and all the other boys and men and women who’d come down to the sewers looking for work and never returned, he wasn’t an idiot. If John came up against the masked mercenary, there would be only one outcome, no matter how many YouTube jujitsu videos he watched. 

No, this was a reconnaissance mission – gather information on what Bane was doing in the sewers, whether he was alone or cooking up more doom for the city, and get the info to Gordon so the GCPD wouldn’t be going in blind. In and out without being detected, that was the name of the game. 

Of course, the game would be a lot easier if he could find the damn area he was looking for.

The sewers in this part of town were older and more cramped than the larger system where Bane had originally made camp. The tunnels here were about eight feet wide across, with two small walkways on either side of the drainage ditch. The walkways were particularly small – John had to move with his back half turned against the wall, walking the ledge like a tightrope, one foot in front of the other. He tried to picture Bane’s huge body traversing the same area and couldn’t, the thought too ridiculous to mesh with his image of the terrorist. 

Ultimately, John was thankful for the narrow space. If the pathway had been larger and he’d been able to walk without the support of the wall, he never would have found the chamber.  
It was at the beginning of the block John had been saving for last, mostly because the footpath, which was already more narrow than was comfortable, tapered off to little more than a couple of inches wide. He braced his back harder on the wall, flush against it as he shuffled further down the passage way. 

When the wall suddenly gave out behind him he was only barely able to keep quiet, jerking himself forward and fighting not to overbalance in either direction. Blake dug his fingers against the wall, two nails snapping off at the quick as he slid down, his left foot slipping off into the water flowing beside him. He finally stabilized, jerking himself back on the walkway, scowling at his sodden pant leg and bringing a hand up to suck the blood welling up from his index and pointer fingers. He winced at the stinging pain and peered through the dark, trying to see what the hell had happened. 

The bricks in the wall were distorted, pushed out of place by his body like some sort of pinscreen toy. John reached up and carefully pushed against the weak area, managing to keep his footing this time as the stone buckled under the weight, indenting further. 

Though Blake was no longer a GCPD detective, Gordon’s adage had stuck with him – you couldn’t believe in coincidence in an investigation. This was it, it had to be. This was where Bane had killed Alex and, apparently, blocked up the entryway afterward. The sound of the water was suddenly dimmed, overtaken by the thudding tattoo of John’s heart, beating wildly in fear.

***

For several moments, all John did was listen, frozen with fear and picturing Bane bursting through the wall and attacking him like some sort of possessed beast. 

That didn’t happen. In fact, nothing happened. The room beyond was still, only dim light filtering in through the gaps in the brickwork. Slowly, John reached into a pocket on his Kevlar vest and pulled out one of the three smoke bombs he’d taken from the cave. There’d been a fair bit of equipment stashed in the waterproof cases, but so far the smoke bombs were the only ones John felt comfortable using in battle. With the bomb clasped carefully in one hand, John removed a brick, setting it aside carefully and peering into the hole.

The room was just as Darryl had described: low ceiling, maybe twenty feet deep, with jagged, pockmarked walls that suggested an unfinished construction project. Blake guessed it had maybe been planned as another spillway before being abandoned. 

And in the corner, just barely visible from Blake’s angle, the cairn. He was definitely in the right place. 

John worked slowly, removing brick after brick. _Finally_ , he thought, the adrenaline overdose making him slightly giddy, _all that time playing Jenga is paying off_.

It took eleven bricks for John to clear a hole big enough for him to squeeze through. He crouched down, cleared the corners, and scanned above. There were crevices in the wall, some of which looked deep enough that they might lead somewhere, and a large, circular tunnel above the bricked up entrance. 

John crept forward. He kept low, his head on a swivel. The only sound was the persistent drip of water off in the corner. Bane wasn’t here. 

The cairn was the sole object of interest in the room. It was made from what looked like scavenged bits of bricks and concrete, stacked chest high and about the length of a – _oh_. 

John suddenly knew what the rock pile was, and riveted with curiosity, he straightened and moved closer. Who could possibly be in there? Who would someone like Bane want to bury?

His fingers had barely grazed the cold stone when he heard the rasping, surprisingly melodic voice behind him.

“Another vulture, come to pick at the corpses of the fallen.” John didn’t have time to react, a hand in his hair already gripping tight. “Here, have a closer look.” 

John’s face smashed against the cairn, his cheek ripping open on a jagged point before he was hurled back. Bane was on him in a moment, foot connecting solidly with John’s gut before the pain had even registered. Winded and retching, John flopped over gracelessly, trying to crawl. Where had he come from? Christ, Blake had only had his back turned for a moment. How could someone so big be so damn quiet and _fast_? John’s frantic thoughts were interrupted by a boot prodding firmly into his side.

“How many of you vermin must I exterminate before you leave her in peace?” Bane growled from above. Blake summoned his strength and lurched forward for the wall. If he could just get to the wall – the hole was too small for Bane to fit through, he could escape. He could get _out_ – 

John didn’t make it a step, effortlessly lifted by the vest and slammed back into the ground. Even with the Kevlar dulling the blow, the pure force of Bane’s strength had Blake gasping. Panicking, he did the only thing he could think and threw the smoke bomb, a thick, white cloud filling the room within seconds. 

Before John could react, Bane had him again, wrenching him to his feet. The shift in position, plus the smoke, had Blake utterly disoriented. He struck out, hitting solid, unyielding muscle. 

“Quiet, vulture,” Bane snarled, shaking Blake by the neck, “you came here for a prize. Allow me to give it to you.” John was dragged, kicking and panting in desperation as he struggled against the impossible grip. The cairn was suddenly against his back, Bane’s massive hands clasping his head, fingers digging painfully into John’s scalp. 

He was going to die. He was an idiot and he was going to die horrible and bloody, but God damn it, John wasn’t going to die like a frightened animal. He reached up and grabbed the hands holding him, baring his teeth and finally meeting his murderer’s eyes as the smoke settled around them.

The sensation that ripped through him then was stronger than any of the pain. It felt as though every pore on his body had suddenly opened and John was wracked with an uncontrollable, full body shudder. Later, John wouldn’t be able to describe much of it with any accuracy, unable to translate the feeling of complete certainty that had consumed his awareness at that moment. 

The link slotted into place like a missing piece and wrenched a desperate, needful sob out from the very core of him. 

As John’s body recovered from the overwhelming sensation, he realized Bane’s hands were no longer on him. The mercenary had stepped back and was staring wide eyed at John, the raspy breaths coming from the mask matching John’s own labored breathing. 

A look of utter fascination came over the other man’s face then and John knew he had only a moment before Bane moved back in, on John for a completely different reason. 

Bane lifted his hand and John did the only thing he could think of. He ran. 

***

John tore through the hole and back down the sewer without care or comprehension. He was operating on pure instinct, adrenaline flooding his system until even his fear was numb and distant. At the ladder, he came back to himself a little, mustering up just enough presence of mind to rip off his mask before clearing the manhole. 

He emerged soaking wet. At some point he must have ditched the walkway in favor of running through the drainage, but John couldn’t remember. He didn’t waste time thinking about it, just let the cover slam back down and ducked back onto the street. Despite the hour, there were still people milling around. Low level thugs and vagrants, mostly, with evening workers headed home dotted through the mix. Even downtown, where people made an art of ignoring what they didn’t want to see, John was drawing attention. He saw heads turn to follow him as he ran past.  
 _It doesn’t matter, he told himself. You’ll deal with it later. Just get home. Just get home._

‘Home’ repeated in his mind like a mantra, preventing any other thoughts from filtering in, especially ones like _go back_ and _want_ and _please_.

Only after John had crossed the threshold of his apartment did he stop and allow his brain to catch up. It was hard to concentrate, his head felt muddled and thoughts weaved in and out. A concussion, probably. He forced his focus to steady, and as he did John realized he needed to calm down. He was making mistakes. Mistakes he couldn’t afford if he was going to disappear. 

John went into the bedroom and started packing. He kept it light, only throwing only the bare essentials into his backpack while he mulled over his options. The cave was the first place he thought to flee. He could bunker down for a week or so until a better solution presented itself. That idea was quickly dismissed, though, when John remembered that Wayne manor wasn’t empty anymore. If Bane did somehow find him (and John choked on his own spit when he recognized the warm feeling of welcome that followed that thought) he’d be only a short walk away from a mansion full of orphans. 

Okay, so the cave was out, but that was fine, it was alright. John would get into his piece of shit car and drive. Let Bane try and chase him. The mercenary’s face was in every police database in the country. John was a nobody. He had anonymity on his side. 

The packing only took about six minutes – John didn’t have much to begin with and he was used to leaving places quickly. When foster families kicked you out, they didn’t like you dragging your feet. John zipped his worn backpack up and crossed the living room to ransack the bathroom. 

Bane was sitting on his couch.

There wasn’t a name for the sound that came out of him then. It was some combination of ‘shit’, ‘fuck’, and an embarrassing shriek that John would never admit to if asked. He had the curious sensation of his body attempting to move both towards and away from the other man at the same time, leaving John off balance and reeling. He dropped his backpack and splayed a hand on the doorframe to steady himself. 

Bane had changed clothes, now dressed in a large hooded sweatshirt with a handkerchief tied loosely around his neck. Blake’s mind quickly supplied the image of Bane stalking after him on his mad run, the red cloth pulled up to cover the mask and the hood worn low to hide his face. 

Even after John’s unsubtle entrance, Bane didn’t look up from what he was doing – which, John saw with a flare of anger, was going through the wallet he’d left on the table before going out to patrol. The mercenary had laid out every card – John’s license, his debit card, a grocery store loyalty card, and his library card – on the table in front of him. A beat or two of silence passed as Bane regarded the little pieces of plastic.

“Robin John Blake,” Bane’s voice was a purr when he finally spoke, one of his large fingers tracing over the picture on John’s ID. “What a delightful surprise it is to meet you.” The masked man abruptly stood, seeming to fill up the room as he did so, and John fought the instinctive urge to step back. 

His gaze was open and appraising as it swept over John, lingering for a moment on the still slowly oozing gash across his cheek and the various bruises mottling his face. His brow furrowed in displeasure. “You haven’t tended to your wounds,” Bane said with an unmistakable tone of regret. He offered a hand. “Come. Allow me to mend my wrongs.”

John dug his fingers in where they were curled around the doorjamb, letting the pain from his torn fingernails ground him, steady him, prevent his body from doing anything stupid without his consent, like reach back. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” John’s disbelief was so heavy he actually laughed, anger rising as that hand remained outstretched. “I’m not- get out. Whatever you think this is, think we are, you’re wrong. It’s a mistake.” 

Bane, the great terrorist, the fugitive, actually looked taken aback at that. John sneered. If he’d expected John to come to heel like some lovesick idiot, he was going to be disappointed. 

“You are angry. It is understandable,” Bane said levelly as he stepped forward, pausing when John tensed. “I assure you, had I known you were mine, I wouldn’t have harmed you. You have nothing to fear from me, Robin Blake.” 

And this time, when Bane stepped forward, John did step back, speaking shakily as he did. “Believe me, the fact that you tried to bash my brains in is the least of my problems with this fucked up situation.” 

Bane didn’t speak any more as he advanced on John, backing him up into the bedroom. John matched him step for step, fighting to keep the distance between them. He should have known it was useless to even try. As soon as Bane decided he was done playing, he darted a hand out, grabbing John around the bicep and pulling him in. 

John had expected the grip to hurt, but Bane was gentle. Firm, but gentle. John wasn’t. He thrashed, fighting the hold with a ferocity that surprised him. It didn’t matter. Bane countered every blow, deflecting without striking back, until John was pinned in his arms. His back was pressed to the mercenary’s front, not an inch of space between them, the heat of Bane’s body soaking through the damp of John’s clothes. 

“Yield and allow me to dress your wounds, then we can discuss your concerns,” Bane spoke, the metal of his mask dragging lightly over John’s ear, each press of the cool steel sending a shiver through him. The man’s voice was infuriatingly calm, as though John’s struggles were taking no effort at all to contain. 

“Fuck you, _fuck you_ ,” John spat. It was all he could think to say. His head was killing him, all this exertion probably not helping his concussion, and it felt like a fog was muddling any shred of reason that John could have used to calm himself. He was panting but couldn’t get any air and he just had to get _away_. Dimly, he heard Bane rumble from behind him. 

“I apologize for this, _habibi_.” 

Then everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

When John was fifteen years old, he’d gotten into a fight with one of the older boys at St. Swithin’s. It hadn’t been the first, and wasn’t the last, but the boy in this particular fight had been a bruiser. He was not only larger than John (and most of the boys there were – John had always been small for his age) but he also had a mean streak. The kind of mean streak that told him that John needed to get bloodied up for refusing to hand over his cake at dinner time. 

And John, the big fucking hero that he was, had convinced himself that Batman’s mate wouldn’t back down from a bully, that he was smarter, faster – that he could win.

That was the only other time in John’s life that he’d been knocked out. 

He’d woken up a minute or two later, disoriented and confused with Father Reilly kneeling over him, calling his name. Eventually John had managed to croak out a barely understandable reply – right before he vomited all over the linoleum. The rest of the day had been awful. He’d been headachy, nauseous, and periodically dizzy. He also couldn’t remember a single damn thing about the actual fight but, hell, that was what a kick to the temple did to you.

This was nothing like that time.

It was hard to tell for sure, but when John woke it felt like he’d been out for a few hours, rather than a couple of minutes. He was in his room, under the blankets on his bed and he was surprised by how good he felt. Okay, maybe good wasn’t exactly the right word. John hurt. His body was a mass of aches, muscles seized like he’d…well, like he’d let some Goliath slam him into a few walls. But his mind, at least, was clear. There was a lingering headache, and he was probably a little slower to process than usual, but the panic he’d been gripped with earlier had receded enough that John could actually think. 

He sat up, wincing as his body did everything in its power to convince him to sit the fuck still, and began to take stock. The muscle pain was obvious, but once John began to focus, other injuries brought themselves to his attention. The two fingers whose nails had been ripped off on the wall were wrapped in gauze, fine except for a dull throbbing that kept time with his heartbeat. The gash in his cheek was worse, sharp pain slicing through him whenever he so much as thought about shifting expressions. Eating was going to be hell, and yawing was out.

John brought a hand to his face and traced the wound with a finger, following the bumpy texture of the sutures with mild curiosity, and then let his hand continue the path up into his hair. 

His very damp hair. 

John had been bathed.

It was funny. See, John had thought he was past anger for the moment. He’d figured that the emotional numbness he felt was part and parcel of his adrenal glands being all but burnt out after the past twenty four hours. But the picture his mind conjured up of Bane peeling the sodden clothes from his limp, unconscious body and washing the grime of the sewers off of his skin with the same hands that had murdered Alex had John choking back fury. Or maybe it was bile. John couldn’t be sure.

The blankets were suddenly constricting, pressing down on him and drawing attention to the soft weight of the sweats he’d been changed into. Bane had dressed him. Like a doll. John couldn’t sit still anymore. Moving would be better than thinking, even if it meant pain. He lurched out of bed, stumbling as his legs took a moment to figure out that, yes, they could still actually support his weight, and made for the door. Bane wasn’t in the bedroom, and John wasn’t naive enough to think that the terrorist had left him alone. There was only one other place to check. 

Sure enough, when he stepped into the living room/kitchen, he spotted the masked man immediately. Bane was at the sink, his back to John, his back – 

His back. Christ. 

At some point during the last few hours, Bane must have discarded the hoodie he’d disguised himself in while stalking John. The armor, apparently, had been set aside as well, because Bane was standing in John’s kitchen with his torso completely bare, save for the belt that remained tightly wound around his waist. John’s mouth was suddenly bone dry, and he swallowed compulsively, trying to wet it. 

_He took them off to bathe you._

John’s mind, his traitorous, asshole of a brain, once again fed him the image of Bane washing him in the tub. This time, though, he saw Bane as he was before him, and his mind’s eye was particularly vivid as he pictured that scarred skin pressed against his own, wet to the forearms as he manipulated John’s body in the water. He’d have been bent over, the florescent light catching on the jagged tissue that bisected his back-

The sharp stab of _want_ that hit him was like a slap in the face. The disgust that followed wasn’t enough to drown out the hot, hard clench in his gut, but it was something to cling to, and John seized it, letting it power him forward out of the doorway. He made it three steps before Bane’s voice stopped him.

“If you were hoping to catch me unawares, I’m afraid you lost the element of surprise quite some time ago.” The masked man spoke without turning around, continuing his work in the sink. John paused, the metallic rasp of Bane’s breathing counting the beats of silence between them. 

The reminder of how badly John had fared the last time he’d tried to take on Bane was enough to dampen his rage, taking the lust with it and leaving only John’s self-disgust to fill the hollow the discordant emotions had carved in him. Wordlessly, he sat down on the rolling chair in the corner. 

How the hell had this happened? 

John had known three soul bonded couples in his life. The first two he didn’t remember well – one of his foster families and a pair of women who sometimes volunteered at St. Swithin’s – but the other had been his partner and his wife. John had had ample opportunity to watch them together, the young couple always making sure to invite him over for holidays and special events, and John never failed to be impressed by how well they’d fit together. That was the point of a soul mate, of course – someone to fill in the places you lacked. 

And according to nature, or the universe, or whatever the fuck decided these things, Bane was John’s perfect complement. The man who’d ripped his city to bits and tried to murder millions of people was who would bring out John’s best qualities. 

Christ, what the fuck did that say about John?

It took John a second, lost in his thoughts as he was, to realize that Bane had finished whatever he was doing in the sink and was now looking right at him. John instinctively jerked ( _fuckow_ ) as he felt the bond tense, like a wire strung taut between them. Oddly, as Bane walked over and the space between them shrank, the bond only seemed to pull tighter. By the time Bane was crouched in front of him, it felt like one wrong move would snap John in half. 

“You are more lucid,” Bane observed, his voice surprisingly soft. He reached out and John flinched. The bond was almost painfully tight now and he was honestly afraid of what would happen when Bane touched him. His reluctance seemed lost on the other man, who ignored his movement and gently trailed his fingers over John’s stitches.  
The second Bane touched him the bond went slack. It was still there, but muted, a soft presence at the back of his mind. If the situation were different, John could have almost called the sensation pleasant. 

“Your wound will scar,” Bane’s words ended on a grunt as he hefted himself into standing once more, “and we must watch for infection, but you will heal well.” John’s kitchen chair was dragged over, creaking dangerously as Bane settled his considerable bulk on its cheap legs. “You have not tried to run or fight me yet. Am I to assume that your behavior last night was some sort of temporary insanity?” 

John met Bane’s eyes levelly, not making any attempt to hide is scowl. “The only reason I didn’t jump out the bedroom window is that I can hardly fucking move. The minute that changes, I’m gone.”

Bane’s expression remained static, as though he hadn’t even heard John’s words. John was about to repeat himself, adding in some colorful language for flavor, when Bane leaned forward, settling both of his huge, powerful hands on John’s thighs. “I can ensure that that minute never comes, _habibi_.” His voice was darker, any previous good humor replaced by utter conviction. “It would be simple enough to put you in enough pain to keep you docile.” 

Before John could speak, and before the blood could completely drain out of his face, the mercenary pulled back. “Let us hope that you do not push me to that. For now, I must finish preparations for our departure, and you must recover your strength. You may do so on the bed or on the couch, whichever you prefer.” 

John’s mouth dropped open like a cartoon parody, and the way he sputtered while trying to find his words would have been funny in any other situation. “You’re fucking insane,” John whispered, shock muting his tone. As his anger rose, though, so did his voice. “People I cared about are dead because of you. You can go wherever the fuck you want, but I’m staying here.” He didn’t try to explain exactly how he was going to keep Bane from dragging him behind him like a disobedient puppy, but John would cross that bridge when he came to it. 

As Bane raised his hands, John braced for a blow, but relaxed minutely when all Bane did was lace fingers together and rest his joined hands on his chest. “A great many people are dead because of me,” he said coolly. John waited for him to continue, but Bane left it there, as though that explained everything. 

“Jesus Christ,” John said shakily, swiping a hand down his face. “If you think that’s some sort of…incentive for me to follow you, then you’ve reached a level of psychosis that I didn’t think a person was actually capable of. Congratulations.”

If Bane was offended, he didn’t show it, his masked face as inscrutable as ever. “You knew Bruce Wayne,” he said after a pause, and John was seriously starting to wonder if his concussion hadn’t messed up his cognitive skills worse than he thought because what the hell?

“Are you…is there some sort of language barrier here? Are you actually understanding anything I’m telling you, or are you just saying whatever the fuck pops into your he-“

“You were in my sewers in a mask and you have several weapons scattered around your house that previously belonged to the Batman. You knew Bruce Wayne.” 

The certainty with which Bane spoke erased any possibility that the man was guessing. Bane knew who the Batman really was. It made sense, of course. Bane had been the reason that Wayne had disappeared for five months. It only followed that the terrorist would have had a peek under the mask. Still, John couldn’t help feeling vaguely violated on behalf of the billionaire as he answered the question with a tight nod, seeing no reason to play dumb when the truth was so obviously known. 

At John’s reply, Bane continued speaking in a slow, measured tone, as though choosing each word carefully. “You seek, as Mr. Wayne did, to save this city. Unlike our mutual acquaintance, however, you have neither the raw strength nor the training necessary to even attempt to do so. You should have died beneath the streets of Gotham yesterday. If I allow you to continue your fumbling heroics, you will almost certainly die within the year.”

The words stung. As much as he would have liked to, though, John couldn’t deny them. The proof was in the pudding, and John’s pudding was smashed into a brick wall along with a good deal of his blood. He kept his mouth shut as Bane continued, willing the hot flush he could feel creeping up his neck to subside. It didn’t.

“Gotham is dying. If you truly wish to fight for it, I can give you the training you need. The same training, it so happens, that your friend Mr. Wayne received.”

John blinked, and before he could think, he was speaking. “You’re lying.”

Bane laughed, the sound coming out warped and strangely distorted from the mask. “No, my Robin, I am not. The previous leader of my order found Mr. Wayne in a Bhutanese prison and took him under his wing.” Whatever humor Bane found in the story suddenly disappeared, his tone becoming icy. “After months of eating at his table, sleeping beneath his roof, and fighting by his side, your hero betrayed our order. He burned the temple to the ground, killing many men in the process.”

As the words disappeared into the following silence, Bane rose, appraising John from above. 

“I have something you desperately need, and I am willing to trade for it. All I ask in return is your compliance. You will cease your attempts to escape and obey my orders. When you have completed your training and have been inducted into the League of Shadows, you may return to Gotham if you wish to.” 

The masked man paused long enough to glance at the small clock on the desk beside them. 

“You have six hours to decide. Rest, Robin. And think.”

***

Time passed at a snail’s pace. 

After it’d been clear that Bane was done with their conversation, John had gotten up and staggered back to his room, closing the door between them and collapsing on the bed. Though his body was exhausted and he idly thought that a nap might be a good idea, he’d remained awake, his thoughts racing back and forth on the spectrum of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, never settling for long on either one. 

His logic played loops in his mind, repeating the arguments over and over again, as though one more go through would convince him of the right choice. It didn’t, and now, after what felt like an eternity, John was down to fifteen minutes. He needed to choose. 

John was about to go through the options and reasoning and pros and cons one last time, when the door to the room suddenly opened and Bane stood in the doorway, a rucksack slung over his shoulder. 

A flare of panic burst in John’s chest. Bane was early. John was out of time.

When John made no move to join him, Bane stalked into the room. John tensed, figuring that Bane had read a decision in his inaction and was going to attack, but the other man simply stopped beside his bed, looking down expectantly. “Your decision, Robin,” he prompted, fixing John with a flinty gaze. 

A long, slow breath escaped out of John then, clarity coming as it left. There had never been any choice here. Bane had played the perfect trump card, one that John had no chance of resisting. Slowly, he stood.

“It’s John,” he said firmly, distaste bitter at the back of his throat. “If we’re going to do this, then you need to call me by name I can actually stand.”

The corners of Bane’s eyes creased, and John realized with a shock that the mercenary was smiling. The bond lingering unobtrusively at the back of his mind suddenly thrummed hotly, leaving John shocked and short of breath as Bane moved back to the door. _No. I can’t afford lapses like this. I’m not – I don’t care what the hell he’s feeling. I don’t._

Bane looked back. John’s gut clenched. 

“Come along, John Blake.”

And John did.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is my birthday, so here's a gift from me to you!
> 
> Edit: Since I posted this at ass-o'clock in the morning, I somehow managed to not paste the first paragraph of the chapter. It's now been fixed. Thanks to the livejournal anon who let me know!

John had to admit, going back down into the sewers made sense. As he’d explained to Bruce Wayne the last time they’d talked before he’d disappeared, the tunnels winding beneath Gotham were maze like, a labyrinth. Even with the stacks of records he’d had, trying to actually find anything down there was like trying to find a needle in a hay stack – a hay stack that could give you e.coli. If John wanted to leave Gotham undetected, he’d probably choose the tunnels, too.

Of course, that didn’t make being in them any more appealing than usual. They were still as dark and damp as before, but this time John didn’t have the adrenaline running through him to block out the stench. 

The two of them had gone into a manhole one block over from John’s apartment, Bane lifting the cover one handed and gesturing for John to go down first. John knew the mercenary expected him to run again, but John hadn’t. He wasn’t going to. John was stubborn, yes, and brash, okay, but he had integrity. He’d made a deal and he was going to see it through – and God help Bane if he didn’t live up to his end of the bargain.

From the get go, it was obvious that Bane knew the sewers forwards, backwards, and upside-down. He let John lead, giving him orders to turn right or left as the situation called for. He didn’t even have a map. John found he was grudgingly impressed, though he kept it to himself. No need for Bane to start getting ideas. 

When the tunnels began to look familiar, John slowed. He couldn’t say for sure, of course, pretty much everything down here blurred together, but he felt a strange sense of deja-vu. When he recognized the out of place wall he’d so memorably scrambled through, he knew he wasn’t imagining things. 

John felt a hand on his shoulder and realized that he’d stopped walking. When he didn’t immediately start back up again, Bane gave him a light shove. John didn’t budge.

“You said we were leaving Gotham,” he said, voice tight with a fear John didn’t want to name.

Bane made a noise of agreement, a deep ‘mmm’ that sounded growl-like through the mask. “And so we are. But there is something that needs to be done before we leave.” This time, Bane’s shove was more pointed, and John did move.

The nervousness built as Bane removed brick after brick, setting them carefully aside as the hole in the wall grew large enough to allow them both through. 

The room looked the same, except for the remains of their fight. The smoke-grenade casing was off to one side, and along the ground John could see thick paths where the grime, dirt, and dust on the floor had been disturbed - swept away when Bane had all by dragged him around. That wasn’t all, either. 

Even through the darkness, John could tell what that dried-black patch on the cairn was. His blood.

John turned and watched as Bane came through the opening after him. A soft, terrifying whisper kept running through his mind – that Bane had brought him here to finish what they’d started. To punish him for running. To hurt him more.

But Bane barely even glanced at him when he’d cleared the wall, his own attention lingering on the cairn. “Wait here,” he grunted before approaching the rock pile, crouching down and carefully shifting the stones around, removing small, grey packs from beneath. At first, John couldn’t figure out what they were. They were too similar in size and shape and color to be supplies, and they certainly weren’t weapons. He took two steps forward for a closer look, and then it sunk in.

“You rigged it to blow.” John was dumbfounded, and he knew it leaked into his voice. Bane paused in his movements long enough to nod, and then circled around to get the C4 packs stashed in the back of the cairn. 

It didn’t make any sense. Bane had attacked him because he’d simply _touched_ the thing; Alex had been murdered for the same crime. And he was planning on blowing it up all along? “Why?” John realized he’d actually said the last bit out loud when Bane met his eyes over the mounded arch of rocks between them. He was packing the C4 into Ziploc bags, carefully zipping the closures before storing them in the rucksack. When he’d finished, he didn’t immediately move, one hand settled lightly on the impromptu coffin, pensive.

“She would have preferred having her remains destroyed to having them fall into the hands of her enemies.” Bane looked at the cairn as he spoke, one thumb brushing back and forth over the stone. “If it came to it, I was prepared to honor her wishes.”

 _They wouldn’t have done anything to her body. We don’t defile corpses in Gotham,_ John wanted to say. _We’re not psychopaths like you._ Also came to mind. John didn’t say either of those, though, because one question loomed larger than any dig he could possible get in. 

“Who was she?” 

Bane let his hand fall away, then, but didn’t hesitate at all with his answer. “You knew her as Miranda Tate.” 

And John, well. John had guessed as much. On the ride to Wayne Manor, to the funeral, he’d asked Gordon what had happened before Batman had taken the bomb. Gordon had hesitated and brushed him off at first, but as the minutes passed and the silence dragged on, he’d let bits and pieces slip out. He seemed relieved to be telling the story, or what little of it that he knew. Miranda Tate had betrayed Gotham, that much was clear. The ‘why’s and ‘how’s, however, were a mystery. 

Not to everyone, apparently. Bane knew those answers. In fact, it looked like Bane had known Ms. Tate well. Possibly intimately. 

“I mean who was she to _you_ ,” John asked. Spat, really, with an annoyance that wasn’t appropriate or necessary. He was…he was _angry_. Why was he so angry? He tried to reel the confusing emotion back in as Bane looked sharply at him with that penetrating stare John already hated, but he couldn’t. The sharp little nub kept eating at him, partly because he couldn’t figure out where it came from. _What the hell am I doing? Why am I so jeal-._

Jealous. He was jealous.

John didn’t know how much longer he could put up with his body hijacking his mind like this. 

Bane was still staring him, eyes searching over his face, and John turned away, unsure of what he’d find there and not willing to risk it. “Forget it, you’ve got your bombs, let’s go.”

John made for the wall without waiting for Bane’s permission. The gap was wider now, and it took barely any squeezing at all for John to slip through, waiting on the other side until Bane followed. He made a point not to look back. He didn’t need to see Bane saying goodbye. 

Whatever Bane had had to say, though, it didn’t take long. He emerged shortly after John, who he handed the rucksack to before kneeling down and carefully replacing every single missing brick. Within minutes, he’d sealed the tomb up just as neatly as John had opened it less than forty-eight hours ago. 

“You asked me who she was,” Bane said as he stood, and John scowled because, God. He didn’t want to hear, he didn’t want to know anything about them in case that hateful little spark came back and wormed inside him again. 

And yet…

And yet, the kid who’d constantly kept mystery novels by his bed like they were his one lifeline to the world was still inside of him. Curiosity was a sickness for John, an addiction that had him nodding, even as his frown deepened. 

John didn’t know how a man as big as Bane was managed to move so quickly. He caught John’s forearm in his hand and John reacted instinctively, pulling back and bringing his other arm round to strike. The masked man caught him there, too, using the double grip to pull John closer. They were flesh against flesh – and John experienced that disturbing feeling of familiarity again before-

_Fuck._

_Oh, Christ, fuck._

If the unwelcome jealousy from before had been uncomfortable, this was horrific. It was like being force fed despair – agony and anger tripping over each other as they bulldozed their way into his mind. 

“Stop,” John choked, jerking but not going anywhere. Bane didn’t, the horrible bombardment didn’t, either. It was like- _fuck, fuck, fuck, no_ -like the world had ended. 

Once, during a particularly boring patrol, John had asked his partner to tell him what a bond-share was like. Anthony had tried, giving him metaphors and similes that didn’t quite add up or make sense, and John had dropped the subject, frustrated and wondering how a simple question could be so damn hard to answer. 

Now, John understood why. 

He jerked again, and this time Bane did let him go. The unexpected momentum sent him reeling back. It was only by pure luck that John didn’t fall into the water, hitting the wall instead and steadying out. John panted, his hands trembling as the adrenaline leveled out. The pain was fading quickly, though, draining from his mind like water out of cupped hands.

“What,” John stopped, scrubbed the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, and tried again. “What the fuck was that?” 

John flinched as Bane moved, but he was only picking up the rucksack. “That was Talia,” he said, and then nothing else for a long while.

***

They didn’t make any more stops. The rest of the trip beneath the sewers was a greyish blur of stone, rushing water, and Bane’s footsteps behind him. It took three hours for them to reach the outflow, and another ten minutes until they were on the shore, looking from Midtown to Uptown. The lights of the city were shining on the water, and at this angle, Gotham was almost beautiful. 

“This it, then?” John asked, not really meaning it as a question. There was obviously more to go, unless Bane’s secret Batman ninja school was under the brackish water of Gotham bay. 

“We must cross,” Bane answered. He opened the rucksack and checked that the C4 was still safely sealed in plastic.

“You mean in a boat, right?” And again, it wasn’t a question because he already knew the answer before Bane said it.

“We will swim.” 

Of course they would. Because the pedestrian bridges were too dangerous – one misstep or accidental sighting would mean violence and possible capture. The opposite shore didn’t look that far away, thankfully - maybe two tenths of a mile, three at the max – but, even though they were heading into summer, the water was bound to be cold. And there could be things in the water. Animals. Sharks, maybe. 

John felt his headache start to come back.

It took roughly half an hour to cross the bay. The distance was as short as John has suspected, but the water was choppy, dark and salty. And cold - let’s not forget cold. He’d lost Bane three times, the mercenary’s dark clothing easily swallowed by the inky blackness of the water, but each time he did, Bane came back for him, yanking him around until he was on course again. By the time John beached himself on the shore, he’d swallowed more than a healthy amount of water and was exhausted. It didn’t matter. Within moments, they were moving again. 

Later, John would blame the darkness for why he didn’t realize where they were until it was staring him right in the face. Or, rather, until he was looking up at the waterfall that guarded the entrance to the cave. 

“How the hell did you find this? How did you know?” John asked. As much as he would have loved to call Bane a fucker and throw a punch, it wouldn’t do any good. It wouldn’t make this place go back to being a secret. Bane was pulling John’s rappelling gear out of the rucksack and setting it up.

“I found the coordinates while you were sleeping,” he replied, deftly uncoiling the rope. 

“ _Found_?” That was ridiculous. John was not nearly that stupid. “I had those in a goddamn _safe_!”

“Yes,” Bane said pleasantly, handing John the harness, “so you did.”

John gripped the nylon in his hand, furious, putting it on with short jerky motions. He let the familiar ritual calm him down, and by the time he’d skidded to a stop on the rocky riverbed, he felt ready to question Bane with coherence instead of directionless anger. 

“You could have just said this is where you were going to train me,” John muttered once Bane had cleared the falls with much more grace than John had managed. “I could have driven us out here instead of you dragging my ass through the wettest parts of Gotham. Why the hell did you need to keep it a secret?”

Bane was doing the silent-but-thoughtful thing again, walking deeper into the cave, up to his thighs in the water. He scanned the cavern with the flashlight he’d pulled from the pack, lingering on the support turrets and other structures that stuck out amongst the stones.

“We are not here to train you,” Bane finally said, his voice even eerier in the gloom as he explored. He was searching for something, wading back and forth in the water, the light flicking from one side of the room to the other. John knew what he was looking for, and he knew when he’d found it. The mechanical click and whir sounded when Bane stepped up onto the hidden ledge, and suddenly he was rising into the darkness, just as John had done all those months before.

Bane turned to him then, and John didn’t need to see his eyes to know he would look triumphant - a conqueror securing a foreign land. 

He pulled a small piece of plastic out of his pocket, thumbing over the surface and tossing it down to John as it began to flash. The pulses were regular and steady, like a signal being sent out. Like a beacon. John sat down heavily, uncaring of the water flowing around him. He'd allowed this to happen. He'd helped Bruce Wayne's enemies to walk right into his legacy. 

John looked up. Bane was at the computer, which was now unfolded in welcome. "Now is not the time to rest, John," he chided, only half paying attention. "We must prepare for our brothers' arrival."

The beacon contained to flash in John's hand. John didn't know how long there was until whoever was coming would get there, but they would, eventually. And when they did, everything that remained of the Batman would be taken. 

John had failed. Utterly. Completely. Unforgivably. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief talk of rape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the lovely [Sibilant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sibilant/pseuds/Sibilant) for being an amazing sounding board and person.
> 
> Also thank YOU all so much for your wonderful comments and kudos! I am so touched! I hope this latest chapter pleases.

John stayed sitting in the river for a long time. Long enough for Bane to finish checking the computer and raiding the equipment cases and have come back down from the platform. Long enough for John’s skin to have gone numb from the cold of the water and every inch of him to be either damp or plain soaking wet. It wasn’t, however, long enough for John to come up with something even close to a workable plan to protect the cave.

He turned the beacon off. That was something, at least.

But John was pretty sure it wasn’t going to matter. If Bane had given him the device, then there probably wasn’t much John could do to stop whatever plan he’d already set in motion. 

John hated the paralysis currently holding him still and miserable in the water, but this had been his ace in the hole, his plan for when he finished whatever training Bane was going to put him through. But now Bane had it, just like every other thing in John’s life. It’d been a long time since John had felt so goddamn helpless. 

The paralysis lasted until he noticed what Bane was doing at the entrance to the cave: hunched low and off to the side with a block of C4, fitting it into a gap in the rocks. Then, as suddenly as if John had never been pinned down by his own failure at all, he was moving.

“Hey! Hey, fucking- _no_ , stop that!” He yelled, scrambling up and run-wading through the water toward Bane. Bane didn’t respond, ignoring John right until John put a hand on the bag and tried to yank it away. “What the hell are you thinking, you fucking lunatic?” John hissed. That got Bane’s attention. His huge hand clenched in the strap and he stood, moving the bag out of reach and shoving John on his ass in a series of movements that were as fluid as the river John found himself waist deep in again. Before John could even start getting back out of the water, Bane was crouched in front of him. 

“I am preparing for every possibility, John. If you prize sentimentality over the destruction of your enemies, then you will die. Let this be your first lesson,” Bane said, standing, but not moving back or allowing John any other space. “I do not need your help to set these charges. Instead you will build a fire on the platform.”

John scowled at Bane from the water, wiping his wet face with an equally wet hand. “I’m supposed to believe that this isn’t some sort of revenge thing? That you’re not planning to blow this at the first possible moment?” John struggled up, just getting his feet underneath him when Bane shoved him again, sending him back down.

“Would you like to try again, John?” Bane said, evenly, unflappable. 

“Fuck you,” John spat back, but didn’t move from where Bane had put him. 

“Would you like to try again, or would you like to start the fire?” Bane repeated, and John knew that tone. It was the same tone John used when one of the kids was throwing him attitude for no reason. 

John clenched his jaw, teeth grinding over one another in a gritty slide of enamel. “There’s no wood and every fucking thing in this cave is wet. How, exactly, do you expect me to start a fire?” 

Bane made a noise then. Maybe a laugh, maybe a snort, John couldn’t tell. “Improvisation is the mark of a great warrior,” he said, turning back to the wall and the charges that were waiting for him.

John stared after him, mouth slightly agape, letting the words process. “What the fuck does that even mean?” He yelled over the rushing of the water. John wanted to hurl rocks at the masked bastard, wanted to dig his feet in and be the angry, petulant little fucker all his foster parents knew and loathed. But no matter what Bane thought, John wasn’t a child; he wasn’t going to throw a tantrum on the floor of Batman’s cave. If Bane had decided that training started now, then by God John was going to be a star fucking pupil,

So he got up and he walked around the cave and he looked for anything that would burn. He raided the supply cases first, coming up with the emergency flares he knew were stashed there, as well as the handful of energy bars he’d put there himself in case he needed to stay over for a few days. The wrappers, at least, would burn. John put his finds in the middle of the platform and kept searching, tearing open one of the snacks and devouring it in three desperate swallows as he did. Fuck, he was hungry. 

There was nothing useful in the bottom half of the cave and the top half behind the platform was pretty much empty. John was about to see if he could manage to rehook into the ropes and belay back out of the cave in the dark when he had a thought. He grimaced because, God, if this panned out it was going to be really fucking gross.

He returned to the raised part of the cave, the cement platform that didn’t sink beneath the water, and there, at the very back, right beneath where the bats apparently roosted, he found what he was looking for. Guano. A decent sized pile of it, too.

John bent at the knees and looked over the brownish-black mound, almost like gravel in the dim of his flashlight. It looked dry enough, even if it smelled freaking rancid – like ammonia soaked in, well, bat shit. John screwed up his face in distaste as he realized that this was probably the most viable option.

He unzipped his jacket. Fuck, this was going to be unpleasant.

It took three trips from the corner to the platform for John to gather what he assumed would be enough fuel for a decent fire. He scooped it up, using his jacket as a makeshift bag so he didn’t end up absolutely covered in guano. It didn’t help as much as he’d thought it would.

When John checked, he found Bane still at the wall, but much higher up, using one hand and both feet to steady himself as he climbed while he placed the charges with the other hand. His muscles were bunched and taut with the effort. John licked his lips and turned away. 

The wrappers caught fire easily enough when John stacked them into a pile and turned the lit flare onto them. They burned a little too well, in fact, and John grabbed a handful of guano and quickly sprinkled it over the small fire, worried it would peter out before the crap could catch.

He laughed right out loud when the guano ignited because _fuck_ , he really hadn’t thought that was going to work. The feeling of success pushed out the anger and fear and discomfort for a while, John actually grinning as he continued to feed the flames, until he had a steadily burning camp fire that smelled completely of ass. 

The flickering light warped Bane’s shadow as he came up behind John, who threw one last handful of bat crap onto the fire before standing up and facing him. “So? Did I pass your test?” Because that’s all this could have been, a mission John was supposed to fail, to highlight how necessary his dependence on Bane was. If Bane was disappointed to see him succeed, though, he didn’t show it.

The mercenary cupped the back of John’s neck with one hand and regarded the fire with mild interest, nodding. “Clever. This will do well.”

John knew that the surge of warmth he felt was just his idiotic biology responding to the approval from his mate. John _knew_ that, alright? But he’d worked a damn miracle here and he was stressed beyond what he’d thought the human body was actually capable of enduring, so he indulged. He allowed himself thirty seconds of basking in that feeling before shutting it down and locking it up as tight as he could. He shook off Bane’s hand, relieved when the man let him go and settled his giant bulk by the blaze.

Bane stretched out his legs, his boots only six inches or so from the fire his eyes on John as he warmed himself. John knew he was being sized up, but he ignored it, more focused on the light shivers the cold had running through him. Any concern he’d had over possible hypothermia, though, disappeared when Bane said,“Take off your clothes.”

John, who had been halfway to sitting was startled enough to land too hard, the hand he’d been about to brace himself on collapsing under him, and he ended up in an uncomfortable, half sprawl. He righted himself immediately. If he was going to fight, he’d need every advantage.

“That’s not happening,” John’s voice was barely above a whisper as he spoke, fists clenched at his sides. He’d known this was coming. A thug like Bane wasn’t going to let a little thing like the lack of consent keep him from taking what he wanted. Yeah, John had known this was coming, but he’d just thought he would be in a better state to resist when it did.

Bane looked at him then, brow furrowed. “It was not a request,” he said, his voice snapping harsh. When John doesn’t move, Bane stood and advanced. John held his ground and lifted his fists. He wasn’t going to run, this time. If this was happening, then John wasn’t going to let Bane chase him down like, like fucking _prey_. He was going to lose, either way, but damn it. He was going to lose _fighting_.

The sight of the black rucksack in Bane’s hands distracted John just long enough for Bane to strike, shoving the bag hard into John’s chest, while his other hand grabbed at the hair at the back of John’s neck and yanked him forward. John thrashed, but Bane shook him and shook him again until it felt like his brain was soup and he went limp in Bane’s grip, breathing raggedly. 

“You fear that I will take you now, John? You are right to. If I want to have you, I will have you. You are my mate. I am stronger than you. All of these are truths you must accept,” Bane growled, and John struggled again, but Bane simply shook him until he quieted. “There is nothing you could do to stop me if I wished to hold you down and rut into you. Do you understand?” When John didn't answer, Bane leaned closer and looked straight into him, eyes flicking back and forth as they searched his face. “Yes, I believe you do.”

Bane dropped him, and John fell to his knees, lips curled in a snarl and hands flat against the cement. 

The bag dropped in front of him.

“You will undress, change, and dry your clothing by the fire. I have no plans to touch you. Do not say no to me again this evening,” Bane’s tone was once again calm, as he spoke, though his words were undercut by a current of steel. He returned to his place at the fire, and when he sat, John straightened.

He waited for more, but when Bane stayed where he was, John found his voice. “That’s it?” He asked, the anticlimax leaving him practically humming with adrenaline. 

Bane didn’t answer, and slowly, as his hands steadied and his muscles unclenched, John rose and opened the bag. It was the first he’d seen inside, and John was surprised to find clothing and a blanket and the first aid kit and a sundry of other small supplies instead of the collection of weapons he’d been expecting. John made quick work of undressing and did his best to wipe off the streaks of guano on his skin with the wet clothing. When he was as clean as he was going to get without going back into the river, John dressed in the spare clothes Bane had packed – a sweatshirt from John’s days at the academy and a pair of worn blue jeans. Only when he finished did he let himself think about what Bane had said.

John didn’t know if he was telling the truth about leaving him alone, but Bane had been right. Whether he was lying or not, when Bane decided he wanted John, he’d take him. John could either tie himself up in knots waiting for it, or he could trust that, in this one thing, Bane was being sincere. He didn’t know which option was right, but he couldn’t think about it anymore. Tomorrow. He’d figure it out tomorrow. For now, there were other things to worry about. First and foremost being the lingering chill John felt all over.

Being in dry clothing was a step in the right direction toward getting warm, but the cold had settled deep in his bones. John took the blanket (a crappy throw he’d gotten from the White Elephant party at the precinct last year) and started to lay it out by the fire.

“No, we will not bed down here,” Bane said abruptly. His words stopped John in his tracks and he looked at the mercenary in a mixture of puzzlement and annoyance. Bane lifted his hand and pointed at the fixed cement platform in the back of the cave, off in the shadows. “Lay the blanket there.”

That was…that made no damn sense. 

“Why did you have me make a fire if we’re not going to sleep by it,” John asked, careful to question rather than to outright refuse, not wanting to set Bane off again so soon.

The absence of a pissed out refusal must have surprised Bane, because he glanced over, one eyebrow raised in consideration. “Tell me, John. If you entered the cave at this moment, what would you see?”

John frowned, but looked around, the brightness of the fire against the pitch black of the rest of the cave making it almost impossible to see anything clearly beyond a radius of a few feet. Shrugging, he tossed the blanket over his shoulder and answered, “The fire, I guess.”

Bane made a noise of approval, nodding. “So you would. The fire draws the eye and allows you to conceal what you wish to hide. Warmth is not worth sacrificing the advantage of your surroundings.”

Put like that, it was obvious, and John was struck slightly dumb by the elegance of the solution – camouflage and a distraction in one. He was impressed – and it wasn’t his stupid biology this time. It was Bane and his plan and how damn smart it was. John made himself nod silently instead of asking the questions pushing to the forefront of his mind, clamoring over one another in search of an answer. 

His resolve wasn’t going to last long. Without another word, John took the blanket and walked over to the corner Bane had pointed to, laying the thin fabric over the freezing floor and settling down on it. Even though he was chilled to the core, and the ground was hard and unyielding, sleep dropped onto John like a sack of sand.

He slid in and out of unconsciousness in stages, the unfamiliarity of his surroundings jerking him awake several times before he finally succumbed. 

Right before he did, though, Bane’s lesson on the fire bloomed bright in his brain, nagging at him, the words filtering in past the haze of exhaustion in a broken, disjointed loop. 

And, in the back of his mind, as darkness closed in around him, a tiny voice whispered.

_’If he signaled his friends, why do we need to hide? Why do we need the explosives? Who the hell has he called here?’_

Later, John would wish he had asked those questions then. If he had, maybe things would have turned out differently. 

But before he could, sleep finally claimed him, and by the time he woke up, he had his answers.


	6. Chapter 6

_John was at St. Swithin’s, on the roof, in the bleachers of the basketball court. It was raining lightly, the blacktop gleaming and small puddles forming where the court sloped in. Jimmy and Alex were there, on the court, grey and dead and terrifying._

_Jimmy was bloated, waterlogged, streams of murky water pouring out of his nose and mouth and ears as he stumbled back and forth. His hair was stringy and his clothing soaking wet, and every time he moved a sick, gurgling sound bubbled out of his mouth._

_Alex kept running into things – the post of the hoop, the chain link fence, Jimmy –which would have been funny if the front part of his face wasn’t a mangled, red mass of flesh and bone and viscous fluid._

_It was like John was paralyzed, frozen in place as he watched the gruesome scene before him. He’d known these boys in life and had never feared them, but these boys weren’t alive anymore. They were dead, and angry, and they knew what John was doing. But they couldn’t find him, not yet, not as long as he stayed silent. They staggered back and forth, occasionally coming within a foot or two of John, and each time they did he felt a scream well up inside of him until they shambled away._

_There was someone else, there, too. Someone just standing in the corner of his eye .They were big, and broad, and unmistakable._

_It was Bane – it was Bane and he –_

John woke with a sharp intake of breath. The cave was dark, the fire having died down to embers and John struggled to orient himself. He was on the blanket, in the corner where he’d lain down earlier. The wall was in front of him, and something – no, someone, Bane – was behind him, close, but not touching. As John lay silently, trying to work himself completely out of the nightmare, he realized what had woken him. 

Softly, only barely rising above the noise of the water, he heard a noise that didn’t belong. A _shh-shh_ of shifting gravel, like something sliding over it repeatedly. 

Someone was moving around in the dark.

John’s throat spasmed and clenched, choking on his terror because he knew who it was. It was Alex, or Jimmy, and they weren’t just dreams, they were coming through the darkness for him. 

He’d only just shifted the slightest bit, his body reacting to the thought of running without really following through, when a hand pressed between his shoulder blades, rolling him forward and pinning him down. 

He felt calm flow into him them. Calm and caution. It only lasted a moment, but John got the message. Stay quiet. Stay still. It was enough to shake the last dregs of the dream from his mind and John realized that whatever was in the cave with them was probably more dangerous than any figment of his guilt. He felt Bane move away, but didn’t hear a thing as he disappeared into the shadows. The other sound, though, was growing closer. John stayed where he was, back turned, muscled tensed and fists balled up, ready to fight.

He didn’t even get a chance to take a swing before he felt a blade at his neck.

“Stay still and you’ll live a little longer,” a firm, male, faintly accented voice said into his ear, and whatever movement John had been making cut itself off into utter stillness. A hand rifled around the folds of the blanket underneath him, pausing and drawing something out, holding it in front of John’s face. 

John recognized the steadily flashing red light of the beacon immediately. 

“Where did you find this?” He asked, and the blade cut closer. There had to be blood, now, and John could picture it clearly - a thin line right along the edge of the blade. “Which of my brother’s corpses did you rob to take this?”

“Fuck,” John hissed, barely moving his mouth, afraid of accidentally pressing into the knife and widening the cut. “I didn’t rob any goddamn bodies.” He tried to put as much conviction as he could into the words, but that was hard when it felt like your head was about to be separated from your neck.

The man started to speak again, getting out a word that sounded somewhat like _liar_ before it’s cut off with only a slight hitch in his breathing to give away his surprise.

“I’m surprised, Rostam. I’ve never known you to question a man when you could just as easily slit his throat. Remove your blade,* Bane said above them, and John risked a turn of his head to see. Bane was behind the man – Rostam – his hand cupping his neck, almost tenderly. But John knew the strength in those hands and, apparently, so did Rostam. The knife disappeared and John scrambled away, 

Bane held Rostam for a moment longer before letting him go, and the other man turned slowly, hands held out at his sides. He was older, possibly Middle Eastern, balding, and thin in the face in a way that made him look almost sickly. Or maybe that was the shock that colored his features for a long moment before it faded into surprised pleasure. “Brother,” Rostam began, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, “I am glad to see you.”

John struggled to process the abrupt shift, rubbing at the slice on his neck with a frown. “Jesus Christ, is this the sort of friend you have? People who go around giving Columbian neckties away for no goddamn reason?” John spit out, the question more rhetorical than anything, because of course that’s the type of friend Bane had. He shouldn’t have expected anything less.

Both men turned to look at him in one motion, like a scene from a Hanna Barbera cartoon, but without the humor. Bane did not look happy about his outburst.

“My student has yet to learn the art of silence,” Bane answered by way of explanation, and there was something about the way he said student instead of mate, holding John’s eyes as he did, that made John realize there was an undercurrent here that he’d missed. Something even Bane was navigating carefully. “Build up the fire, Blake.”

And John let that whisper of caution – which sounded oddly like Jim Gordon – guide him over to the fire. The embers were still glowing in the ash, and John began the process of adding more guano, slow and steady until the fire had well and truly caught. It was hard to ignore the specters of Jimmy and Alex, still vivid from his dream and lingering at the corner of his mind. Each handful of shit he threw in the fire made him choke around his guilt, because God, this wasn’t what he’d meant to do when he’d gone looking for justice, or revenge, or whatever it was that’d brought him down into the sewers. 

This was spitting into their graves.

But there were other people in Gotham, other people he could help, and people who would benefit from Bane being distracted. 

_Is this how it starts?_ John wondered bitterly when he realized that he was actually starting to talk himself into behaving, _Is this what the bond does? Makes you make yourself accept it?_

The thought of his mind turning against him like that was sick and uncomfortable and John focused on the fire, until it was roaring and he’d successfully pushed it aside for the time being. Later. He’d worry about it later.

John jerked in surprise when he looked up to find Bane staring at him over the fire. Rostam was still in the corner, looking over at them. John couldn’t make out the expression on his face, but he could feel his eyes on them. On him, in particular.

Bane tossed him something and John caught it before his mind really registered what it was. The blanket. 

“My brother and I will take a walk now. You must sleep and save your strength for tomorrow.” Bane’s tone was flat, commanding, prepared for an argument. John told himself that he spread the blanket on the ground and lay down because he didn’t want to give Bane the satisfaction of meeting his expectations. And that was part of it, but John could also sense the danger here, and not from Bane. No, there was a new danger, and even though John didn’t understand it, he could respect the threat it presented. His rationalizations from before came back to him. And John added another one on top of it. He didn’t want to die. Not yet.

If Bane was surprised, he didn’t comment. He didn’t make a single sound, and when John craned his head around, Bane was gone.

***

John didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he woke to the sound of low voices, he knew he must have. At least it’d been dreamless, this time.

He was faced away from the fire, the warmth on his back almost too much compared to the creeping cold against his front. Bane and Rostam were behind him, speaking softly. Snatches of the conversation filtered in, jumbled up and making almost no sense.

_“…you know…”_

_“…brother, it’s…”_

_“…and what of….”_

John kept his eyes closed and his breathing sleep-steady, focusing and straining his ears over the ambient noise of the cave. If they had waited to have this conversation until he was asleep, then whatever it was about, John wanted to hear.

“…and the men in Sri Lanka, as well. All called back.” That was Rostam, his accent markedly different from Bane’s , though no less strange to John’s ear

“She’s closing ranks,” Bane said, almost no inflection in his voice to give away whatever he thought about that. Whatever _that_ was. 

“Yes, I do believe…” and whatever Rostam said then was pitched too low for John to make out, no matter how hard he strained. The tail end of the conversation picked back up in volume, and John was just able to catch the last few words. “….return won’t be welcome.”

“No. It will not,” Bane answered, his voice never dropping too low for John to hear. “And your return? If she has called all the brothers back, then what of you?”

“…swore to stay until your beacon was….-vated or destroyed. I keep my word.”

Bane didn’t reply, and as the silence grew John felt a prickling on the back of his neck. He was being watched, and he didn’t even have to guess by whom. John tensed, he couldn’t help it. Bane knew he was awake. 

“So you do,” Bane finally said, thoughtful. “We will talk again in the morning, Rostam.”

And then all John heard was the sound of the fire and the quiet breathing of the other men. 

***

John slept in fits the rest of the night, jolting awake at half dreams and strange noises, the uncertainty about what would happen in the morning making his stomach twist whenever he was awake. 

After a while it got to be too much and he sat up, looking over the fire at the two sleeping men. Well, the one sleeping man. Bane was sitting up, too, hands busy with a black chord, tying it in knots before undoing it again. John watched for a time, until Bane looked up from his work and met his eyes. Still silent, he nodded toward the cave entrance, and rose. 

Keeping as quiet as possible (though still loud compared to Bane’s catlike movements), John followed. 

At the entrance, sunlight was just beginning to stream through the water, casting the rocks in an eerie, blue-grey glow. When they were as close to the falls as they could get without actually being in them, Bane began to speak. 

“You are a difficult mate.”

John didn’t respond, because _no fucking shit_.

“We will be entering a dangerous place soon. Where dangerous games are played. If I am to protect you, you must obey,” Bane spoke into the falls, instead of at John, the sound of the water almost drowning him out. Which, John realized, was the point. He didn’t want his friend to overhear them.

“I don’t need protecting,” John muttered, and then Bane did turn to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“No?” His voice was questioning, but John knew it was rhetorical. “Perhaps you have been hiding some talents from me. Show me now. Show me how you intend to protect yourself.” John scowled. Silently. Bane nodded. “Yes, I see. Impressive.”

“So, what? You want me to keep my head down and say ‘yes, sir; no, sir’?” The very idea had John tense with anger. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t that man.

Bane laughed, the sound louder, but still not escaping the crash of water. “That would be ideal, but I believe you are incapable of such obedience,” and John wasn’t even surprised to hear Bane echoing his thoughts. The bond was growing stronger. Soon, Bane would know every inch of who he was. “When we are alone, be cautious. When we are not, be silent and do not challenge what I say. Listen. Be prudent. Do you understand?”

John understood, though he didn’t know if he could manage that. He’d never been good at keeping silent, but it sounded more liveable than the submission John had been expecting. He held Bane’s eyes for a long moment, then nodded. “I understand.” 

Bane touched him, then, cupped his jaw and let go again so quickly that John didn’t even have time to pull away. 

And after Bane had left, climbing back toward the platforms, John realized that pulling away hadn’t even been his first instinct.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was an absolute slog to write, but it's finally done! Thank you so much for your patience, I honestly appreciate all of your comments and kudos, and really just the fact that you all take the time to read this story. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to the wonderful [Sibilant](http://sibilantly.tumblr.com/) for all her patience and proof reading!

Finding the way back from the cave to the road was markedly easier in the daytime. Landmarks that had only been vague shadows the night before were now clearly recognizable, and John kicked himself over and over again for being such a fucking idiot. His abusive inner monologue was the only conversation he got, though, because Bane and Rostam were completely silent, and had been since Bane and John’s conversation by the waterfall. 

“Where are we going?” John asked for the third time when Bane paused to let him catch up, Rostam scouting a little ways up ahead. Bane ignored him, just like the other two times, moving forward again as soon as John was an arm’s length away.

John didn’t fucking understand. It wasn’t like knowing where he was being taken would help him escape, not when Bane was capable of putting him down with a flick of his wrist. Maybe, John thought as he carefully stepped over and through a trio of fallen trees, eyes fixed on the broad expanse of Bane’s back moving ahead of him, maybe I could use the bond.

It...wasn’t the most appealing idea, and a large part of John’s brain railed against it. Trying to use the bond meant possibly leaving himself open to Bane, letting more of his mind worm its way inside of John. But he’d felts the effects, seen how it could be used, and while he’d never heard of the bond extending to actual telepathy, if he could just get a feeling-

Anything would be better than stumbling around after a psychopath.

The next time John got close enough, he reached out and grabbed Bane by the arm, keeping him from continuing on. “Where are we going?” The words were pitched low enough that Rostam wouldn’t hear. The look Bane leveled at him was blank, but still managed to speak volumes - each one a warning.

John didn’t let go.

Oddly, using the bond felt like flexing a muscle, more than anything, and felt so natural that John had hardly thought of doing it before realizing that he was.

Doubt was the first, unmistakable emotion to creep in and overlay itself onto John’s mind, but confusion followed shortly after. Then, it was a torrent. John had trouble picking out the varying, changing emotions, his mind latching onto one before it disappeared back into the humming mass that was, he supposed, Bane himself. The despair that John had felt earlier, when Bane had forced it onto him, made everything that much more difficult, but not impossible.

Determination was there, and expectation. And lurking, in the back, below everything else,John felt something nagging and foreign, but vaguely familiar.

Before he could place it – after only a moment – Bane yanked his arm away and rounded on John. His look was knowing and rightfully suspicious. John lifted his hand placatingly. “Turnabout is a bitch, huh, big guy?” John said, with none of the smart ass humor a question like that would usually carry.

Bane answered by yanking John forward by his shirt and shoving him forward. John marched on without complaint, turning over what he’d felt in Bane’s head and trying to pinpoint the mystery emotion.

It was only later, feet scrabbling as he climbed up a washed out, muddy embankment that it clicked. It’d been years since John had felt anything like that, which is why it’d been so difficult to place.

No, John hadn’t felt homesick since he was very young indeed.

The hike bottomed out after about an hour, ending at the turnout John had parked his car in so many times before. Except this time it wasn’t the familiar shape of John’s Corolla waiting for him. This time, there as a white, unmarked van.

“What, you guys got some fucking terrorist version of Enterprise now?” John hissed softly at Bane before realizing that, for all he knew, they did. Anti-terrorism wasn’t really John’s area of expertise, after all.

“Rostam secured our transport while you slept,” Bane replied simply. John almost argued that there was no way he’d slept that long, but again - he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of a whole fucking lot, these days. 

The bag, and Bane, went in the back and it was immediately apparent why they’d needed a van instead of a regular car. John tried to imagine Bane crouched in the back of a sedan, head and shoulders hunched down low just to fit, and the idea was so fucking ridiculous that John nearly snorted out loud. Any good humour faded, though, when Rostam pressed the keys into his hands.

“You want me to drive?” John asked, disbelievingly, unconsciously looking at the closed back door of the van. Rostam’s eyes narrowed slightly, obviously measuring John in some way, and, if the look on his face was anything to go by, finding him incredibly lacking.

“You know the laws of this country better than I. You will drive. It will draw less attention.”

Hope, wild and fleeting, shot through John. Plans formed, tripped over themselves, and dissolved almost as quickly as they formed. Mutely, stuck in his own head, John gripped the keys and climbed into the driver’s side.

A hand landed on John’s shoulder as soon as he’d settled into the seat.

“Follow Rostam’s directions closely, John,” Bane said softly, his words sounding for all the world like idle instructions, but John knew better. He could feel the meaning of those words in the weight of Bane’s hand.

John’s fingers tightened, then relaxed, around the steering wheel. All of those wild plans spinning through his mind came to a grinding halt.

Bane was expecting him to try something. Maybe it was a test, maybe it wasn’t, but anything John tried, Bane would have a response for. If John was going to make a move, he needed to tread carefully.

Silently, John jammed the key into the ignition, and twisted.

***

The drive was long and, more than anything, boring. The only exception came near the beginning of the journey, when they’d had to cross the bridge out of Gotham.

Entrance and exit to the island had been on lockdown for the first few weeks following the occupation. Now, though, things had relaxed to the point where traffic was flowing on all bridges again, and the newly installed security checkpoints at the end of every one.

“I don’t have my license,” John hissed into the backseat as he slowed down, stopping about five cars from the front of the line.

There was the sound of quiet rummaging , and then the black square of John’s wallet landed in his lap.

“Oh, fuck you,” John muttered under his breath, not really caring when saw Rostam’s jerked in surprise beside him. He wondered how many people had mouthed off to Bane before. He wondered how many of those people were still alive.

“License, please,” the guard - Moretz, according to the name tag - said, holding her hand out with a bored monotone. John didn’t even fumble as he handed it over.

 _Say something. Anything. Just say ‘Bane’, that’d be enough. Do it._ John thought, but his tongue didn’t even twitch. He didn’t know a lot about the League of Shadows, but John felt pretty safe in guessing that they were a death before capture sort of organization - theirs, and anyone else they could take down with them. The guards, the families in the cars behind them. No. John wasn’t going to be responsible for anymore innocent lives being taken.

“Destination and purpose of travel?” Moretz asked, tapping the half lowered window impatiently when John didn’t answer immediately.

John glanced over at Rostam, doing a slight double take when he saw his face. It was- blank, missing the hard look of competence that’d John seen written all over it every time he talked. Instead, Rostam was, well. Wholly forgettable. If John had been scanning a crowd, his eyes would have moved right over him.

“Chicago,” John blurted out. “Helping my brother move.” There was no tense moment of worry over whether she’d buy the lie. The guard simply nodded, handed his license back, and waved him on.

 _They’ve given up on finding him._ John thought morosely. _He was right here and they didn’t fucking catch him because they’ve given up and gone lazy._ He had this weird overlapping feeling, at once immeasurably glad that he was no longer stuck in a system that treated justice like a game, and also regretting his decision to leave the force for the first time since he’d thrown his badge in the river. If he’d stayed, maybe things would be different.

Maybe he wouldn’t be here, with Bane.

After that, the drive was quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional direction from Rostam. John knew they were headed north, skirting around the 87 through back roads, but that was it. There wasn’t even radio to provide some sort of entertainment. The one time John had tried to turn it on, Rostam had quickly reached over and snapped it off. “Bane is sleeping,” he’d said, and that had been that.

Two hours later, and Bane was still silent and John was trying to work out how much longer he'd be out. Considering that John hadn’t seen him sleep once since their first meeting in the sewers, he figured he had a while. Of course, John had been unconscious for a lot of that time, so his calculations could have been pretty off, too.

It was a risk John was going to have to take.

The plan had slowly been forming in his mind since they’d pulled out of Poughkeepsie. It wasn’t brilliant. Hell, it wasn’t even in the same neighborhood as brilliant, but with Bane asleep in the back and Rostam apparently thinking he was some sort of mouthy, disrespectful student, John figured the pure audacity of the plan might make it actually work.

Ten miles outside of the next town, when the trees grow thick and the cars grow sparse, John slowed down and pulled over onto the side of the road.

“Why are we stopping?” Rostam asked sharply, turning in his seat and scanning the empty stretch of road. John shoved the gear stick into park.

“Gotta piss,” he said, not waiting for Rostam to respond before opening the door and stepping out onto the pavement. Once he started walking, he didn’t stop.

The side of the road was overgrown with weeds and tall grass. John stepped through it, feeling the weight of Rostam’s gaze on the back of his neck and trying not to look back. He didn’t, until he heard the sound of the passenger door open. Rostam and John looked at each other for a long beat, John about halfway to the forest line and Rostam halfway out of the car.

Then, John bolted.

***

If there was one thing John had going for him in any fight, it was his speed. He’d always been fast, but since training and working on the streets of Gotham, he’d only gotten faster. He used everything he’d learned since then while running through the woods. He used the momentum of his body to keep the small dodges over brush and stumps and roots from slowing him down, and he never once, not once, looked back.

He liked to think that it made a difference, but, in all actuality, he didn’t know if it did.

The only sound John could hear was his own crashing through the woods, and for one brief, stupid second, John thought he’d lost Rostam. Then, he was face down on the ground.

The fight that followed was quick and brutal. John thrashed around onto his back, Rostam straddling him from above and raining blows down one by calculated one, forcing John to defend rather than fight back. His arms took the brunt of the violence, but as John twisted to the side in an attempt to get away, Rostam clipped him across the jaw and John’s vision went hazy.

This can’t be good for my concussion, John thought as he slowly came back to himself. When he did, he saw Rostam, still above him, holding his hands down in an iron grip.

“Who are you?” Rostam demanded, lip curled in a sneer. “You are no apprentice. Why do you travel with Bane?”

“Get the fuck off me,” John said, groggily trying to buck up and throw Rostam off. The other man barely moved.

Rostam didn’t answer, but he took his free hand and reached for John’s neck, digging his thumb into the hollow under his collarbone. John jerked and spasmed, gasping at the agony that simple touch brought.

“Fuck, fuck!” John yelled, barely able to hear Rostam’s repeated demands for the truth over his own cries. “I’m his fucking mate, you son of a bitch!”

The pain disappeared in an instant and John was left reeling at the sudden change. He scrambled back, but Rostam yanked him forward by his shirt, keeping him within arm’s reach.

“Explain, jackal.”

“What the hell do you want me to explain?” John fired back, bringing his hands up to grip Rostam at the wrists. “We fucking touched, and bonded, and now he won’t let me me leave.” A renewed burst of fury spread through John as the disbelieving look stayed on Rostam’s face.

“Believe me, if I had any goddamn choice about being here, I wouldn’t be.”

Rostam let go and settled back, crouching and looking at John. The pity in his expression was unwelcome, but it was the worry that caught John’s attention.

“We won’t speak of this,” he said, looking at some point over John’s shoulder with an air of disinterest. “I will not say that you tried to run away. You will not say, either.”

“Why would I-,” John started, but cut himself off as it clicked. His lips turned up in a dark smirk. “You don’t want him to know you touched me.”

Rostam scowled and reached forward. John jerked, his body half responding to the threat without his mind having anything close to a plan, but Rostam merely yanked John’s sleeves down a bit farther.

“Best for both of us that he doesn’t know, I think. Yes. Much better for us both.” Rostam stood up and offered John a hand. After a moment, John took it.

***

By the time they were back in the car, Bane was awake. Or maybe he’d been awake for awhile, John wasn’t sure. Either way, as soon as the doors had closed, he leaned past the curtain separating the back from the cabin and put a hand on Rostam’s seat.

“What happened?” Bane asked, looking at Rostam, but John could feel the weight of the question directed at him. A quick stream of words - Arabic? - stopped John before he had to answer. Though he couldn’t understand what was being said, the nonchalant, bored tone told John all he needed.

It seemed to satisfy Bane, and with one last, long look at John, he retreated and John started the car.

Over the next few hours, John thought over what happened in the woods. He tried to figure out some way to use the secret to his advantage - partly out of strategy and partly out of spite.

He didn’t, hadn’t, expected anything other than casual complicity when Rostam found out John wasn’t here by his own free will, but it still bothered him. This wasn’t what people did. However rare it was, almost every country in the world had protections for soul bonded who needed or wanted to leave their mate. The stronger mate holding the other captive…it was the sort of thing you read about happening in fucked up religious sects, or in days gone by, before society had wised up.

John hadn’t felt this trapped since the early days of being in the system, when he’d still been shunted off from home to home, when going to a new placement was a roll of the dice and running away was only ever a temporary reprieve.

His thoughts continued like this for awhile, their spinning giving him something to focus on over the re-aggravation of his concussion, only jerking to a halt when Rostam pointed to a small dirt road and told John to pull in.

After mile or two, and he was finally told to stop. When Rostam slid out of van cabin, John turned and pulled away the curtain shielding the back.

“Pawlet, Vermont? Your secret ninja base is in Pawlet, Vermont?” John asked, trying for angry, but just ending up sounding confused. A soft, rumbling laugh answered him, and Bane stretched out where he sat in the corner, getting to his feet and hunching to avoid the van roof.

“Of course not, habibi,” Bane said. “But Miranda Tate’s airplane is.”

***

They drove the van off the road and about five hundred feet into the brush. It wouldn’t stay hidden for very long, maybe a day or two, but apparently that was all the time they needed.

The airport was small, cordoned off by one chain link fence that was probably put up to deter wildlife, rather than any sort of security measure. They walked around the perimeter in a tight line - Bane, then John, then Rostam - and John could see the runways and the grey, sheet metal roofs of the hangars a small ways in the distance.

At the furthest edge of the fence, Bane stopped, nodded to Rostam, and stepped back. Rostam dropped his pack silently and pulled out a wire cutter, setting to work on a piece of fence about three feet by three feet. I can’t fucking believe it, John thought, dumbfounded by the complete and utter simplicity of the plan. He had expected, maybe naively, that breaking into an airport would be like breaking into Fort Knox, especially these days.

Bane must have noticed his expression, because he leaned forward, the mask close enough to John’s ear that he could hear a faint, mechanical hum. “The League owns many front organizations across the globe, one of which specializes in acquiring small airfields in North America. We ensure they remain understaffed and disorganized, as suits our needs.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” John muttered back, watching more and more of the fence come apart. “There are rules. Standards. You’re telling me that- management, or whatever the fuck just overlooks this?”

“Humanity is prone to many weaknesses, not least of which is apathy. Give it a fertile enough field, and it will grow.”

John hated that he agreed with Bane, but he did. The guard on the bridge had served as an all too clear reminder - people were lazy, right until they fucked up enough for it to matter.

There was a harsh, grating sound as Rostam pulled back the impromptu door he’d cut into the fence - just big enough for Bane to fit through, which meant John and Rostam would have plenty of room.

They kept to the fence, making their way to a hangar not far from the tree line. The door was unlocked, and ajar, and inside was a plane. Small, John guessed, as far as planes went - not that he really knew. John had never been on a plane in his life. It was stupid, really, that over all the anxiety and uncertainty and anger from everything else that’d happened, fear was worming its deep inside of him. You jump from fucking roof to roof every night, John scolded himself as Bane and Rostam set about preparing for the flight. You’re not going to be scared of a goddamn plane.

By pure force he shoved the fear down, keeping his body moving as a way to stop it from taking hold. He hefted the bags and climbed the steps up into the plane.

“Who’s flying this thing?” John asked as Rostam moved past him, unlocking the cockpit door. “One of you knows how to fly? We’re not just playing this by ear, right?”

His question was met with silence and John sat down in the closest seat, restless and feeling useless. Useless, and nervous.

“Christ,” John swore at no one in particular, gripping the armrests as the plane lurched to life. “What is that?”

They lumbered out of the hangar and onto the tarmac, where John could see the empty runways out of the plane window. He slapped it shut. Rooftop to rooftop. Not afraid of a plane. Not.

“CS-1189, you are not cleared for take off. We have not received your flight plan. Please respond.” John heard a new voice come from the cockpit, but before he could really process it, Bane was in front of him.

“I can feel your fear, John. I need you calm.” Bane said, his hands braced on top of John’s.

There was more yelling from the cockpit, _‘not cleared for takeoff, stop now or we will report you to the authorities'_ , repeating over and over, audible even above the sound of the plane speeding up.

John swallowed, and then swallowed again, shaking his head. It didn’t matter how stupid it was, he was terrified. All John could think of was jagged pieces of metal, fire, and that terrible sensation of unexpected free fall he’d tasted once or twice when he’d misjudged a jump.

“John,” Bane repeated, putting his broad palm flat against John’s chest. It felt…good. For the first time since the bond was formed, John let himself enjoy it. He soaked up the warmth and leaned forward.

“Be calm.” The words helped, but not enough to keep John from reaching out and clutching at Bane’s arm, holding on for dear life as the plane lifted off of the ground. He could feel the steady thrum of Bane’s emotions under his own overwhelming fear, and with only a moment of hesitation, John opened himself to it, until Bane was the only thing inside him.

When John came back to himself, the plane was steady and the angry voice in the cockpit was silent. Bane, was still crouched in front of him, touching him, and John’s fingers were dug into Bane’s shoulder.

“Habibi,” Bane murmured, eyes crinkled and expression fond. The hand on John’s chest lifted, but didn’t go far, settling around the curve of John’s neck.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” John whispered, the words tasting like a lie, even to him. “This doesn’t mean a fucking thing,”

But he didn’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://smugrobotics.tumblr.com/)!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience. This one took a long time to get out, due to some pretty severe writer's block, but I hope that the next chapter should be out much more quickly. Thank you to [Sib](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sibilant/pseuds/Sibilant) for being my beta, and thank you to all of you who are reading.

John gave himself ten seconds. He counted each one slowly in his head as he took stock of the situation. 

_(one)_

The plane was level, save for a bump or two where the altitude dropped enough for John to feel it in his stomach. He didn't like that, but he was at least rational enough now 

( _two)_

to realize that it was probably a normal part of flying, and not the precursor to a crash. The cockpit was silent, too, Rostam either having turned off the radio or gone out of range. 

_(three)_

Did plane radios have a range? John wasn't sure, but either way, 

( _four)_

the absence of yelling could only be a good thing. Nobody was injured and there wasn't a bent or burnt piece of metal to be found. John had himself back 

( _five)_

though Bane kept his hands on his skin, touching lightly and stroking over the line of John's neck with his thumb 

( _six)_

John was no longer invaded by the force of his calm. All that was left in its wake, was John's shame. 

( _seven-eight-nine-TEN)_

As soon as his mental count finished, John stood up, shaking off Bane's hand with a burst of anger aimed mostly at himself. Bane's touch lingered, though, slipping from his neck, to his shoulder, to circling his wrist as John moved away, determinedly avoiding eye contact. 

“Where will you go now?” Bane asked softly, and though his tone was flat, John felt a creeping thread of annoyance worm into him through the bond. “Are you going to hide in the lavatory? Or perhaps attempt to fly away, like your namesake?” 

“Fuck off,” John muttered, trying to yank out of his grasp, but Bane held tight. 

“Your regret is a useless emotion,” he said, and now Bane's voice was no longer calm, it was sharp, authoritative. “It does nothing but endanger your own life. Think on that as you _hide_.” 

And suddenly, John was free. 

He didn't waste time putting distance between himself and Bane, half expecting to be snatched back to be force fed some other nugget of wisdom. But this time, Bane let him go without protest, leaning back into his slightly-too-small chair and flipping the window visor up, seemingly unconcerned with all around him. 

_What's he got to worry about, anyway?_ John thought to himself as he turned away. _All he has to do is wait you out. Isn't that right, John?_

John didn't bother answering his own mental question. He'd earned some self deception, and until they were on the ground and John could do something useful, he was damn well going to indulge himself a little. 

_You could indulge yourself a lot_ , the voice chimed in again, drawing John's eyes unconsciously back to Bane and the hulking, huge shape of him. 

He grit his teeth and made a beeline for the cockpit. He needed to get as far away from Bane as possible, and like fuck was he shutting himself up in the bathroom. 

The door was unlocked, thankfully. Rostam didn't even glance at John as he entered, his attention fixed on the control in front of him. It was a mess of dials, switched and displays that made about as much sense to John as Ancient Greek. He slid into the co-pilot's seat,watching Rostam flick and turn and manipulate the panel, glad to have something to take his mind off of the half-ton problem just behind the door. 

“Guess we're not getting shot down, then,” John said after a moment of silent scrutiny. 

Rostam huffed, the sound rough and deeply annoyed, as though scoffing at the idea that he would ever allow that to happen. 

“Yeah, alright. Wanna tell me _why_ we're not being shot down? I heard the flight tower. They said they were alerting the Air Force.” 

_Wouldn't that just fucking be the way it happens. The cavalry comes – to shoot you out of the air._

Rostam didn't answer for a time, and John's frown deepened. He was curious, despite the situation and the company. John had plenty of knowledge, most of it practical, but planes and piloting didn't fit into any of his skill sets. In fact, the entirety of his knowledge about flying came from the one year Saint Swithins had gotten Top Gun as a donation and the boys had watched it five times in one week. 

Eventually, Rostam leaned forward and tapped a black box sitting on the top of the console. “Radar jammer. They can't shoot what they can't find.” 

John studied the small box, watching the lights blink periodically. He briefly wondered how he might go about disabling it, but just as quickly abandoned that idea. He didn't want to see what would happen if the Air Force did find them. He was pretty sure he wouldn't like the results. 

“So, you can fly a plane and jam radar on top of everything else? You're just a regular jack of all trades.” 

“I know what the League needs me to know. And forget what the League needs me to forget,” Rostam said, the last bit followed up with a pointed stare at John. He'd almost forgotten, with everything else, that Rostam knew exactly who John was to Bane. And who Bane was to John. The weight of that knowledge settled between them and made the silence thick with uncertainty. 

John looked away first, and while the heaviness didn't entirely lift, it did ease a bit. 

“The League of Shadows,” John said as Rostam returned to fiddling with the controls, clearing his throat to sound more firm. “It's some sort of club, I'm guessing. But not the kind you find on Craigslist.” 

“...it is an organization-” 

“-of shadows-” 

“-and if you have any other questions, I suggest you ask your master,” Rostam finished, ignoring the sarcastic interruption. 

John went stiff where he sat. _Master?_ He thought, eyes narrowing. _I'll show you fucking master._

“No,” John said slowly, leaning forward and putting a hand on the back of Rostam's chair, all of his anger coiled in a ball inside of him, unwinding slowly with every word. “I think I wanna hear it from you. I think it's time someone answered my fucking questions, or I'm not sure how many more secrets I'm gonna be able to keep.” 

Rostam turned to look at him, his gaze steady and seemingly unworried. “Is this your clumsy attempt at a threat?” 

John smiled, showing his teeth and leaning in. “Call it whatever you want, but Bane finds out what happened in the forest, I'm pretty sure you're the one who's coming out worse off.” 

His heart was pounding away in his chest, not with nerves, but with _excitement_. It felt good to be taking some power back, however little it was. It was steadying, and when it was Rostam who looked away first this time, it finally felt like John had both feet on the ground again. 

“The League...is an old organization. It serves the cause of justice, of balance, and has kept the world from imploding in on itself for generations. Until now.” 

John remembered the months of mercenaries, the kangaroo courts, the chaos and destruction and death that had reigned in Gotham until Batman had saved them. He'd assumed – everyone had assumed – that it was meant as a punishment. The idea that it was a _cleansing_ , that the fuckers who had opened Blackgate thought they were carrying out some sort of 'the good of the many' bullshit with all that suffering....John grit his teeth together. 

“And?” 

“And I doubt you will last long there.” 

Rostam didn't seem willing to say anything more, but that was fine. John would eke it out, little by little. No point in pushing his advantage just yet. He let himself sink back against the seat, staring outhe cockpit window into the endless blue. 

“We'll see about that.” 

***** 

At some point, John fell asleep. The gentle gliding, and lift-drop of the plane was hard to resist, especially after so little sleep in the days before. He wasn't even aware of drifting off, but one moment he was trying to figure out what direction they were flying, and the next he was coming back to himself, head slumped on the wall beside him, and the world outside was black. 

John rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up. He had to have been out at least two hours, probably more. A rumble deep in his gut told him why he'd woken up at all. 

“Do we have any food?” John asked. 

“This is not a kitchen.” 

“Thanks for that, ace,” John muttered, rolling his eyes and heaving himself out of the chair. He gave his neck and back a good pop, and then headed for the door. 

Bane wasn't in the cabin. John didn't know how big the plane was, from the inside, but what he'd seen as they'd been loading up suggested that there weren't that many places to hide. Not unless Bane was skulking about the baggage hold. 

The galley was at the end of the plane, a small cupboard of a room made up almost entirely of secured cabinets and cleverly arranged cooking equipment. And one large, large man. 

Bane was hunched over a tray stacked with several bags of peanuts, pretzels, some mysterious silver bags with labels too small to read, and five mini-bottles of water. He was just opening up another cabinet when he must have heard John stop behind him and glanced back to see. 

He didn't say anything, just looked at John before going back to his task. 

John considered turning right back around for the relative safety of the cockpit, but that would hardly keep him away from Bane for long, and another clench and churn of his stomach reminded John of just how hungry he was. 

There wasn't room enough in the galley for both of them, so John just stood outside, awkwardly watching as Bane continued to search the cabinets and collect food. 

“I figured you didn't eat,” he said, blurted really, not meaning to speak until it was already out. 

Bane paused for a moment, hand on a cabinet door. “I am surprised that you gave my eating habits any thought at all,” he replied. 

“Don't flatter yourself. It wasn't a lot of thought,” John said quickly, meanly, firing back instinctively. Bane made a deep, thoughtful grunt, but didn't say anything else. 

John, who'd been anticipating another fight, felt the wind go out of his sails at that, and he floundered, feeling around for the stability he'd found in the cockpit. 

“I just-I figured you survived off IVs. Nutrient drip. Something like that.” 

Bane shook his head, reaching up to touch the clasps at the back of his mask. 

“I am wholly human. The mask comes off.” 

“Oh,” John said. 

“Was there something you required, John? Besides a parachute?” Bane asked, finally turning to face him. The effect was somewhat diminished by the hunch of his shoulders, Bane needing to stoop quite a bit to fit in the small room. 

John scowled. The idea of asking his captor for food warring with his pride which, after the last two days, was still alive and kicking. His stomach snarled at him again. Jerkily, John gestured to Bane's tray of food. 

“You leave any for the rest of us?” 

Bane glanced down and shrugged once. “Help yourself, _habibi_. What is mine, is yours.” He made no move to exit, or move any further back, but he slide the tray slightly forward and John, still glowering, stepped into the kitchen. 

It was as small as it seemed from the outside, and Bane took up about ninety percent of the room. This close, John could smell Bane – the damp earth of the cave, the sweet lingering smoked-turkey smell of the guano fire, and clean sweat from the day's exertion. They should have smelled foul, all together, but somehow it didn't. John breathed deep and found that he liked it. It reminded him of coming back to the cave after a hard day on patrol. Unconsciously, John pressed closer, lazily picking out a few bags of snacks from the tray as he leaned in. 

He could feel the heat of Bane's body through his shirt where their arms were touching. It was the strangest sensation, like seeing two parts of himself fighting against each other – his base instinct that wanted to press closer, wanted to bury his face against Bane's neck and breathe and give in – and his higher functioning brain, that knew he couldn't, _didn't_ actually want that. 

“It is no shame to give into your nature, John,” Bane said lowly. “It is only shameful to deny it.” 

That shook him out of it, just barely, just enough that he closed his hand around the snack bags and took a step back. 

“You don't fucking get it, do you?” John said, feeling the pretzels crunch in his grip. “I'm not denying my nature, I'm denying _you_. _You're_ the fucking problem. If you were anyone else, fucking any other person on the planet, we wouldn't be in this situation.” 

Bane stared at him for a long moment, and when he spoke again, any warmth that had been in his voice was gone, replaced by cold certainty. “Nevertheless. The bond will take you eventually. There is no stopping it. I suggest you make peace with that before it drives you mad.” 

John leaned against the doorway, the truth of that striking him like a physical blow. 

“There has to be something,” he said weakly, mostly to himself. “Someone, somewhere has to know how to stop this.” 

“There is not. And even if there were, I would not help you find it.” With that said, Bane turned away, switching his attention back to the galley's many cabinets and ending the conversation in its tracks. John left without a response. There was no point in even trying to reason with someone like Bane. 

As he sat and tore into his mostly crushed snacks, though, he couldn't help replaying Bane's words in his mind. 

_Even if there were._

_If there were._

_Even if-_

Rostam had said that the League was old. Ancient. 

Just because John had never heard of a way to reverse a bond, didn't mean that it was impossible. If there was any chance, the slightest hope of finding an answer...the League might be his best bet. 

John ate and, his stomach quiet for the moment, drifted to sleep again. But this time, it was with a half formed idea and vague, wishful fantasies of freedom following him down. 

**** 

A high, metallic whir pulled him awake. John leaned over, fumbled with the shutter, and opened it. It was still dark outside, but now dots and clusters of light lit up the ground below – ground that was now much, much closer. 

They were landing. 

The whir started up again, followed by a rumbly-vibration under John's feet. 

“It's the landing gear,” Bane said, yanking John from his thoughts with a jerk of surprise. He looked over to find Bane standing in the open doorway of the cockpit, watching him. 

“I figured that much.” 

“Do you need to be calmed, or can you restrain yourself?” 

There was a decent sized bubble of fear churning its way through John's gut, but he clamped down on it at that, gripping the armrests for support. He shook his head, and Bane turned away. 

John kept his eyes on the ground below as they descended, grinding his teeth at every bump and jostle. Soon, though, the ground was rushing up at him too fast ( _so fucking fast, that couldn't be normal, they were falling too quickly!)_ for John to care about how the cabin was shaking. 

The sudden _thunk!_ of the wheels on tarmac nearly had John lurching out of his seat. One glance at the cockpit – at Bane watching him with narrowed eyes – was enough to keep him in his seat until the plane slowed, and finally stopped. 

John walked to the cabin door, squinting out the tiny window. He couldn't see much but a small scattering of lights. 

“Where are we?” He asked, trying to work out the possible locations given how long they'd been in the air. His unexpected naps made it difficult, but one thing was for certain – they were nowhere near New England anymore. 

“Somewhere more accommodating of our needs. Move, John.” Bane reached past him for the airlock, jerking it open as John twisted away and stepped aside. 

It was easier to see with the door open, even with Bane blocking most of the view. They were in a small airfield, trees ( _maybe palm?)_ lining the runway. In the near distance, a stair car was driving toward them. A minute and a half later, it was docked and John was following Bane out into the balmy, warm night air, Rostam at his back. 

This definitely wasn't New England. 

“Buenas noches!” Someone called from their left. There was a car there, sleek and expensive, parked just where it wouldn't have been visible until they'd already exited the plane. Next to the car was a man lit by the red and white light of the plane. He was older, probably mid fifties, and dressed in a light blue suit. Bane slowed in front of him, stopped, and looked at the man. He hooked his thumbs in the straps of his combat vest, seemingly without concern. 

The man stepped forward, closing the distance between them. He was smiling. 

“Welcome to Santa Prisca, Señor Bane.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Given that John had spent the last night in a cave, and the last three years in a shitty one room apartment, the guest room at the compound was a definite step up. 

Not that that was much comfort, considering the circumstances. 

John eyed the door handle, briefly wondering if he’d find it locked if he tried to turn it. The odds were about fifty-fifty. Maybe seventy-thirty. The atmosphere at the airfield had been pretty strange, after all. 

Despite the friendly welcome, the vibe between Bane and the other man had been anything but. John could tell that even without the bond. It hadn’t been anything too overt, but the note of disgust in Bane’s voice when he’d said,”I believe the false courtesy can wait until morning, don’t you, Ysmael?” had painted a pretty clear picture. 

The man’s smile wavered, but held firm. “As you say, Señor. Though the hospitality of our island is anything but false.” 

“I do not need to repeat myself. Rostam, take Blake to the car.” 

Immediately, John felt a hand at his back, pushing firmly. For once, John didn’t resist. For all his pandering, something about Ysmael felt parasitic, the kind of person who liked to creep in past defenses and spread gangrene. 

He looked back as they walked to the car. Bane had stepped in closer to Ysmael, but whatever he was saying was too low to hear with the sound of the airplane jets in the background still winding down. It didn’t look like small talk, though. 

“Who is that?” John asked, putting his hand on the roof of the car to stop Rostam from accidentally shoving him into the door in his haste to follow Bane’s directions. 

“You heard his name.” 

“Heard your’s, too. Doesn’t mean I know anything about you. Besides the fact that you’re scared shitless of Bane.” 

“Is the door unlocked?” 

“What?” 

“The door to the car. Is it unlocked?” 

John tried the handle, nodding when it gave under his hand. 

“Then get inside before you no longer have the option.” 

“Save the fucking threats. I’m going.” 

The car was old, maybe from the 30s or 40s, the type of classic that John had never been inside before. The seats were brown leather and groaned slightly when John slid inside. It was immaculately clean, but somehow smelled of dust and something musty. Maybe old paper. 

John could see the shape of Rostam through the heavily tinted windows, and, further off, Bane and Ysmael. _The hell are you talking about?_ John thought, squinting just a bit, trying to make out more details, without much luck. _Three minutes off the plane and you’re already planning something new._

A sudden pulse of irritation buzzed through him, making him sit up straighter in surprise. He’d been broadcasting again, he realized, loud enough for Bane to push back. _Good_ , John thought smugly. _Hope it throws you off your fucking game._

His thoughts were chased by a shiver of doubt, remembering the warning in the cave and Ysmael’s too slick smile. Maybe now wasn’t the time for vindictiveness, no matter how warranted it might be. 

John thought he saw Bane’s head turn in the direction of the car, but it was hard to tell. _Can you hear me?_ The pit of his stomach itched at the idea. If Bane heard him, though, he wasn’t telling. The only noise in John’s head was his own usual, swirling jumble. 

The door to the car clicked open and Rostam poked his head inside. “Move,” he snapped, pointing to the far end of the car. He didn’t get much of a chance to process the order before Rostam disappeared and Bane filled the empty space of the doorway. John had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Bane coming toward the car, Ysmael close on his heels. As John scooted across the seat, the car filled up - Bane beside him, Rostam in the passenger seat, and Ysmael driving. 

“I am sure you are all eager to rest,” Ysmael said, starting the car with a warm, rumbling burr from the engine. “We have a suite prepared, with a light dinner waiting, at your request.” 

The mention of food made John’s stomach lurch to life with the same loud fervor as the engine had moments ago. How it wasn’t joined in three part harmony by Rostam and Bane, John didn’t know. Unless they’d eaten on the plane while he was sleeping. John had a sudden vision of the two men crouched around one of the low tables in the plane, filling up on packaged peanuts and tiny cans of soda. 

Somehow, he doubted that was what had happened. No, John would have to chalk the stoicism up to more of that super special ninja training. He wondered if he’d have to actually remind Bane that normal humans needed food before he’d stop and let him eat. 

Bane didn’t soothe that fear by responding to either of Ysmael’s offers. The silence stretched on as the car moved in the dark. John studied his surroundings through the windows. The tint made everything seem even darker, but John could still make out soft lights in the distance. The road they were on looked rural, the shoulders lined with long grass and occasional trees popping out of the night like specters. 

Santa Prisca...John had heard of the island before - anyone who knew anything about the drug trade in Gotham had heard of it. For a small bit of land in the Caribbean, it sure produced a fuck-ton of trouble for the narc unit back home. 

He'd never expected to see it for himself. After all, puppet states ruled by a group of drug lords weren’t the top choices in vacation for a cop, even if his salary could have afforded a trip like that. Well, back when he’d had a salary. 

It did, however, seem like exactly the sort of place Bane would hang around. John was sure Ysmael wasn’t Bane’s only acquaintance on the island. He wondered if Bane treated all of them like scum. 

John jolted as the car hit some rough road. “Nearly there,” Ysmael said, gesturing toward the windshield. “Those lights, you see? There is our quaint and comfortable home.” 

The closer the car came to the house, the more obvious Ysmael’s exaggeration became. It was, at its most modest, a large plantation style farmhouse. A more accurate description was ‘mansion’. John leaned forward and watched the house loom over them as they parked, a warm and welcoming glow coming from every window. 

“Guess it beats a cave,” John muttered, though apparently not quietly enough for Bane to miss it. 

“Let us see, at the end of our visit, which one you would prefer.” 

*** 

The only time John had stayed in a hotel, the room had been described as a ‘king suite’. The fact that it’d turned out to just be a bed, a shitty kitchenette, and a moldy fold out couch had been a huge disappointment at the time, especially as John had dropped sixty-five bucks for the crap trap. 

The suite Ysmael showed them to was nothing like that hotel room and everything like the Hollywood vision John had always had. The carpet was thick and the same off-white color as the rest of the room, which opened into a large living area with doors on the right and the left leading off toward bedrooms. The couches looked plush and well padded. John wished Ysmael would fuck the hell off so John could flop down into one of them and see for himself. 

“Señora Castillo has retired for the evening, but I will inform her of your arrival as soon as she awakens tomorrow morning.” Ysmael’s words drew nothing more than a curt nod from Bane. John watched the way Ysmael hovered in the doorway, how his thumbnail kept scraping and picking against the skin of his index finger. He might have had a pretty good poker face, but it was good to see Bane rattled Ysmael as much as he did everyone else. 

“If you don’t require anything else....” Ysmael began after he’d let the silence continue past the point where it was obvious Bane wasn’t intending on making a reply, “then I will retire. Please, make yourself at home.” 

John’s gaze snapped to Bane, willing him to say something about the food that’d been mentioned on the ride over. The couple of bags of peanuts he’d inhaled on the plane were long forgotten, leaving a gnawing emptiness in his gut. _Come on, you son of a bitch,_ John thought, trying his hardest to get Bane’s attention across the bond. _I need to fucking eat!_

“That,” Bane said, sounding much too sharp in the quiet of the room. He seemed to realized the mistake as soon as he made it, though, because when he next spoke, his tone was once against the measured ambivalence John was getting all too used to. “That will be all for the evening.” He didn’t say anything so blunt as ‘get out’, but the sentiment was all too clear. Ysmael left without another word. 

Once again, it was just him, Rostam, and Bane. Always Bane. 

John’s stomach snarled again. Bame glanced at him briefly, then to Rostam. 

“After ten minutes, go to the kitchen and find us a meal.” 

*** 

It was amazing how much better things looked on the right side of a full stomach. Rostam had come back with a variety of food he’d obviously scavenged from the cabinets and fridge at random. John didn’t give a shit. He ate like it was his first proper meal in two and a half days. Which it was. Because, apparently, that’s what life on the run as the soulbond of a world renowned terrorist meant. 

John popped a piece of ham into his mouth at the thought. Might as well eat while he could. 

Rostam, at least, had joined him in the meal, which was more than John could say for Bane. It was bizarre - truly fucking bizarre. His muscle mass alone...how the hell did he eat as little as he did and still maintain the bulk? 

“I don’t want you getting the idea that I give a shit,” John said in a low voice, after Rostam had left the table, “but you dropping dead of starvation isn’t really going to improve my situation. I’m gonna need you to take care of that.” He plucked an orange from the mess of food on the table and rolled it Bane’s way. 

“What makes you think that is a possibility?” Bane asked, stopping the orange with his palm, idly rolling it back and forth. “You saw me with food on the plane.” 

“I saw you with food, yeah, but I didn’t see you eat. In fact, I haven’t seen you eat once since you kidnapped me. We’re getting close to the point of physical impossibility. Whatever the hell it is you eat - blood, children’s souls, whatever - you should probably get some.” 

Bane’s eyes narrowed. “I have been sustaining myself as usual. You not noticing is due to your own lack of awareness, not my lack of action.” 

“You starving me for two days, that my fault, too?” 

“Starving?” Bane picked the orange up and began to peel it. “You ate in the cave. You ate on the plane.” 

“What, peanuts and a granola bar? That’s eating to you?” 

Bane was quiet for a moment, working the peel off in one, long, continuous, strip. “You’ve never known true hunger before, have you?” 

That brought John up short, made him bite back the sarcastic reply he’d had ready. “What does that matter?” 

Bane leaned forward and handed John the peeled orange, which he took unthinkingly. “I look forward to reminding you of this conversation in a few months, when you are immersed in your training. I believe the attitude change will be a lesson in itself.” 

The frown those words caused didn’t stop John from biting into the orange. Chewing, at least, would keep him from digging for more information. As much as he wanted to know more, something told John that any answers he’d get would be vague and more frustrating than they were worth. 

“I’m going to bed,” John muttered after the last bite of orange, and his appetite, were gone. 

He didn’t wait for Bane’s permission, just pushed back from the table and walked into the open bedroom door. He shouldn’t have been tired after the long nap in the plane, but the adrenaline overload of the last couple days was taking its toll. 

John was out the moment his head hit the pillow. 

*** 

There weren’t many dreams that John could remember clearly over the years. Most of them greyed out and faded away by the time he was done with breakfast, nothing more than muddled concepts and a face of two sticking around until even those were forgotten. 

This dream, though, John knew well. It changed a little bit each time he had it, but the basics were always the same: John, his mother, and his father, together in the old house. 

This time, they were cleaning out the hall closet. John was sure, if he went back and looked at it as an adult, he’d find just a normal closet, about three feet deep, stacked with the cast offs and unneeded boxes of whichever family lived there now. In his childhood memories, though, that closet had always seemed endless, like John could walk for miles and never touch wall. 

In his dream, that’s exactly what he was doing. Each time he came back to the door and handed something off to his mom, she smiled and pointed back toward something deeper, just hidden in the shadows. 

“It’s just a little further, baby. I’ll be waiting right here.” 

And John kept going, casting anxious glances back the whole way. 

This was the fifth or sixth time, and he was deep enough that he could only barely make her out now, that familiar shape silhouetted against the light coming in from the hallway. The closet loomed around him, the ceiling rising with each step he took, in complete defiance of physics and standard building practices. 

John felt around in the darkness, running his fingers over boxes and knick-knacks until, somehow, he found what his mom had sent him back for. This time, it was a lamp. 

Relieved, he turned to go back, eyes straining to find the pinpoint of light he knew he had to follow. As much as John squinted and searched, though, he couldn’t see it. 

He lurched forward, one hand pressed against the wall to keep him on the right track. What John assumed was the right track, at least. He had no way of knowing for sure. 

The acrid taste of fear rose in his throat like pennies soaked in bile. John walked faster, stumbling over boxes hidden in the shadows, each surge of panic making him clumsier, robbing him of the speed he needed to reach the door. 

“Mom? Hey, Mom, Dad? Can you- Mom, _please come get me!_ ” The words echoed back to him in the now cavernous closet, losing none of the terror as they bounced off the walls and back to him. He strained his ears, trying to hear even the barest hint of a reply. 

None came. 

John pressed his back to the wall and slowly sat down. He was lost. He didn’t know how to get out and soon his mom was going to close the door and he had to _get out-_

A warm hand curled around the back of John’s neck. Instantly, the tension and the fear eased, pushed aside by the one thought: help was here. 

The closet faded. The rest of John’s dreams were light, warm, and fleeting. 

*** 

The sky was just purpling with the first signs of dawn when John opened his eyes. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he knew where he was. Still half asleep, he thought back over the events of the night before, too drowsy to summon more than bewildered curiosity, at least until he remembered the dream. 

Well, not the dream itself. He’d had similar before, but the hand in the darkness had been new. Disturbingly real, too. It almost felt like… 

There was no almost about it. The hand was still there. 

The wave of exhaustion that had been pulling him slowly back toward sleep let go. John was awake and there was someone next to him in bed. 

No. Not someone. 

Bane. 

That sense of inevitability overwhelmed him again and, for a moment, all John could do was lay there and breathe. How could he fight something his body was so determined to have? 

John listened to the steady _whoosh-fff_ of Bane’s breathing. It was hard to tell, but John didn’t think he was awake yet. As quietly as he could manage, John sat up and slid out of bed. 

_And where the hell are you going to go?_ He asked himself, standing dumbly next to the bed. 

_Anywhere but here,_ was the immediate answer. 

The door opened without a sound (not that John would have expected these kind of digs to have rusty hinges) but John still glanced back. Bane hadn’t moved. Whether that meant he was still asleep, or just didn’t plan on stopping John, was anyone’s guess. He looked different in the low light of morning, his tactical vest stripped off and hanging on a chair by the window, and his air of constant vigilance put aside for the looseness of sleep. 

It felt safe to look at him now, so John did. It was, he realized, the first time in this whole rolling madness that he’d looked at Bane as anything other than a threat. Not that he was any less of one now, but like any other man, he seemed more human while asleep. 

The hate he’d been nursing and nurturing was hard to find right then. He’d find it later, John knew. He’d picture Jimmy’s face, then Alex’s. He’d go through the roster of all the lives that Bane had ruined. The hate would come roaring back then. 

If it didn’t, John was well and truly fucked. 

The door closed behind him as quietly as it had opened. He had to hand it to the Caribbean drug lords. They didn’t skimp on quality. 

The leftovers from the night before were still on the table. He didn’t have much of an appetite, but he forced himself to start eating. John needed to be at his best today, and that meant not thinking about his stomach. 

He was mid-swallow when the door to the room opened and Rostam slipped inside. John, it seemed, wasn’t the only one who appreciated a discrete set of hinges. 

“And where the hell have you been?” 

If John hadn’t been looking closely, he might have missed the small jerk of surprise that Rostam almost - but not quite - absorbed into his turn toward him. The mean joy John felt at startling him didn’t erase the disquiet from before, but it sure as hell helped. 

“Where is your master?” Rostam asked, and John’s smug grin disappeared faster than Bruce Wayne had. 

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the bedroom door. “You wanna wake him up, be my guest.” 

“I am sure he is awake by now.” The patronizing tone did absolutely nothing for John’s darkening mood. If Rostam wanted to pick a fight, John was more than game. 

“Yeah, you ninjas. Can’t get the drop on you, right? You mind reminding me how one man in a fucking cape took down your big, bad plan for Gotham?” 

There was the scowl John had become familiar with. “Irrelevant.” 

“That’s-” John’s next words were cut off by a soft sound from the bedroom. It sounded like something heavy dragging across wood, but beyond that, John didn’t know. Rostam was right, apparently. Bane was awake. 

The reply John had wanted to fire off sizzled and died on his tongue. Rostam was right. It _was_ irrelevant. There were better questions to ask. 

“Who’s Señora Castillo?” 

For the second time that morning, Rostam looked taken aback. “Are the schools in Gotham really so bad that they did not prepare you to make a simple education such as this? You must have heard of Santa Prisca. You must know what business creates wealth such as this.” Rostam finished his speech with a small sweep of his hand, indicating the room, the mansion in general. 

John ignored the barb about Gotham, and the temptation to follow it off topic. “Who is she to Bane? To the league?” He clarified. 

“I am not here to answer the questions of some-” 

John wasn’t wasting time letting Rostam finish that thought. Bane would be out any moment and his chance for answers would be over. 

“-so why are you here? Why are _we_ here? You telling me that this is where the league trains?” 

“-hardly-” 

“So what, then?” 

“Rostam.” 

_Right on time._ John turned and looked at Bane, vest and boots back on, watching from the doorway. His face was unreadable. John sent a feeler out, but the bond wasn’t talking either. Figured that Bane would work out how to hide that away, too. 

It was like some weird form of psychic one-upmanship. 

“Sleep well?” John asked, letting the sarcasm drop from his words. 

“Well enough,” Bane answered. His eyes didn’t leave Rostam. “Has Ysmael come?” 

“No,” Rostam said, sounding mildly surprised. “I would have woken you.” 

“You did wake me,” Bane reminded them, no real annoyance in his voice, though John supposed he had to be something other than happy to be mentioning it at all. 

Bane pulled the chair opposite John away from the table and sat down. John was once again grudgingly impressed by how gracefully Bane carried himself. Any other man Bane’s size would have made the chair groan under his weight. With Bane there wasn’t a squeak of compressed leather or a complaint from the wood. 

“If Ysmael has not come, then there is a reason. I am sure he informed Señora Castillo of our arrival as soon as he left us. They are stalling.” 

John blinked, quickly glancing at Bane and then Rostam, wondering if they’d forgotten he was still in the room. It was a stupid thought - the bond made it impossible for either Bane or John to forget the other - but the fact that Bane was talking logistics in front of him was surprising enough to muffle John’s sense. When it struggled free a moment later, he listened to it and kept quiet. This was his chance to figure out what the hell was going on. 

“It is early,” Rostam countered, paying no attention to John’s interest, “it is possible she is still asleep.” 

Bane gave a single shake of his head. “Unlikely.” Something pinged at the back of John’s mind at that, and even though Bane was trying to keep the link quiet, John knew something was off. Bane’s words weren’t matching that thread of feeling John was tugging on. It looked like John wasn’t the only one Bane was trying to keep something from. 

“Shall I go investigate?” Rostam was so focused on Bane that he didn’t seem to feel the weight of John’s gaze. He thought back to earlier, to catching Rostam coming back into the suite from...somewhere. 

A somewhere that seemed more important now than it had then. 

A somewhere that, maybe, John could use to his advantage. 

*** 

Señora Castillo was a small woman, even by little old lady standards. In her youth, she was probably described as pixie-like - or whatever the Spanish version of pixie-like was. 

For all she was small, though, she didn’t look frail. Not even standing next to Bane. 

The warmth with which she’d greeted them hd surprised John. He’d been expecting cold, calculation, not a friendly hand placed on Bane’s forearm and a slightly flirtatious “So good to see you again, my large friend.” 

“Did you doubt you would?” Bane asked, with none of the suspicion he’d voiced earlier that morning. 

“With that little business in Gotham? I thought you and your merry band were leaving this world for a place in history.” 

“The League endures as it always has and always will.” Bane’s words were dismissive, his statement a foregone conclusion. 

“As our friendship with the league will, despite the change in management, I am sure?” 

It was, possibly, the most euphemistic way John had heard the assassination of a terrorist described before, but even with the light phrasing, John knew it wasn’t a smart question to be asking. 

_Is she brave, stupid, or just cocky?_ John wondered from his place near the door. He studied her face, the unthinking way she maintained eye contact with Bane, the line of her shoulders, the small smirk on her lips. _Cocky,_ he decided after a moment. _Definitely cocky._

“I see no reason for circumstances to change,” Bane said, the _period, end of sentence, end of page_ stamped onto every word. For all Señora Castillo might have been cocky, she wasn’t suicidal and the subject dropped. 

“How long will you and your men be joining us on our lovely island?” Señora Castillo asked instead. 

“How long before you can outfit us with supplies for our journey home?” 

The Señora hesitated, glancing consideringly at Ysmael. “Three days?” She offered, and when Ysmael nodded, repeated them more firmly. “Three days.” 

“Then that is how long we will stay.” 

“We had hoped you would be staying longer.” John didn’t know if the disappointment in her voice was faked or not, but it certainly sounded real enough. “As you know, we are always eager to demonstrate our gratitude to our friends at the league.” 

“And to make _new_ friends.” 

It took John a second to realize that Señora Castillo’s eyes were now firmly on him. He’d been doing his best to blend in, appear disinterested. Uninteresting. Apparently he hadn’t quite managed it. 

“I have not seen this one traveling with you before. I would have remembered.” 

Getting flirted with by a septuagenarian drug lord (lady? empress?). Being pair bonded with an international terrorist just kept opening up doors to exciting new experiences. 

_Jesus fucking Christ._

“I’m new.” John kept his voice flat, trying not to sound overly concerned, or overly smart. Let her think he was some dumb new recruit Bane was letting tag along. 

“Already rounding up new boys for the cause, Bane?” Señora Castillo laughed. “And how do you always manage to find ones as tight lipped as yourself?” 

Silence followed this question, which just made her laugh all the harder. 

“Yes, well. Perhaps you will find your tongue at dinner. If you’re allowed.” It was possible the barb was accidental, a well meant comment that veered off course and lodged itself into a sore spot. It was possible, but it only took one look at that too innocent, and way too curious expression on her face for John to conclude that it wasn’t likely. 

John clenched his jaw to keep his mouth from opening. She wanted to bully a response out of him? Well, fuck her. _Try it on someone who didn’t grow up with the punks at Swithin’s_. 

“Su lengua no es su preocupación.” 

It sounded like Bane - that mask muddled growl was unmistakable - but the anger in the words was completely out of character. John scrabbled in the back of his mind for his long forgotten high school Spanish, trying to figure out what Bane had said. Señorita Alden always said he’d regret not studying harder. Doubt she pictured it’d be like this, though. 

“Oh dear. It seems I have caused offense,” Señora Castillo said after Bane’s words had settled, and while her words were apologetic, her tone was not. Amused. Shades of smug. Maybe John’s chain wasn’t the only one she’d been trying to yank. “Not to worry, I’ll leave your young... protege alone.” 

Funny how much she made ‘protege’ sound like ‘fuck toy’. 

“We have business to attend to,” Bane said, back in English and without the menacing growl. 

“Of course, of course,” Señora Castillo replied, as though she thought Bane really needed her permission. “The house is at your disposal. Make use of it how you will.” 

Bane nodded, turned, and left. Sauntered out might have been a better way of putting it. For all that he was obviously annoyed (if the itching of the bond was anything to go by), he wasn’t broadcasting it. 

Too little too late, in John’s opinion. Señora Castillo knew she’d drawn blood. What she’d do with it was anybody’s guess. 

“The hell was that about?” John asked in an undertone when he’d caught up to Bane’s stride. 

“Later.” It wasn’t much of a response, but by Bane’s usual standards, it was fucking verbose. It was enough to shut John up, for now. 

“Should I arrange to use their phones to call-” Rostam had been so quiet during the meeting that John had almost forgotten he was there, but he was speaking up now, from Bane’s other side. 

“No,” Bane cut him off. “Not now.” He stopped and faced Rostam. “No, for now I want you to speak with Ysmael about the plane. Ensure that we will not be seeing any delays. Three days is what was promised. Ensure it is delivered.” 

“...as you say.” Rostam said, meeting John’s eyes briefly before turning to Bane. “You want me to start now?” 

“Do you see a reason to wait?” Bane’s tone made it clear that there was only one right answer for that, and it had two letters. 

“I will report back what I find.” 

“See that you do.” 

Rostam left. The weird tension hovering in the air between them, however, did not. 

“John.” 

John looked away from Rostam’s retreating back to look at Bane. Bane, however, still had his eyes on Rostam. 

“Yeah?” 

“We will talk.” 

He immediately began walking toward the room again, which made John’s ‘what, here in the hall?’ unnecessary. John quickened his pace to catch up. 

The room wasn’t far. John had been surprised when Ysmael had taken them to a suite only five doors down. He figured a billionaire criminal would have lived in a far off wing, shrouded in mystery and covered with body guards. 

_That arrogance again. She’s trying to show how little she fears him._

The thought came unbidden, but after turning it over in his mind a few times, he couldn’t deny that it reeked of truth. 

Nevertheless, he didn’t like that observation , mostly because he didn’t know what the hell to do with it. 

“If this is another talk about me needing to shut my mouth and behave-” John started when they’d stepped into the suite, but Bane’s hand clamped firmly over his mouth shut him right up. Even if it hadn’t, the warning look in Bane’s eyes would have. 

When Bane stepped back, John didn’t try to continue. When Bane walked into the far bedroom, he followed. Maybe John _was_ getting more obedient. 

_Just because common sense lines up with what Bane wants, doesn’t mean you’re under his thumb._

John tried to convince himself that that was as true as it was yesterday. 

There was a desk in the corner of the bedroom, and John watched as Bane grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. By the time he’d walked back over, Bane had written something down, and John tilted his head to read. 

**I need to check the room. Wait silently.**

John wondered if he got the ‘fuck you’ across in the look he shot back. He snatched the pen out of Bane’s hand and, under Bane’s typewriter neat writing, scrawled: 

**Show me how.**

Bane seemed to consider that for a moment, and then wrote: 

**Watch.**

He moved around the room, trailing his hands over any flat surface he passed, but his face was tilted up - eyes scanning the ceiling and walls. He stopped suddenly, fingers curved around the lip of the desk. With his other hand, he beckoned John forward. 

It wasn’t like John had never had a silent conversation before, but now, with Bane, it was different. Clearer. Less like interpretation and more like actual communication. 

Bane glanced down at where his finger was still pressed to the underside of the desk. 

_Take a look_ . 

John cocked an eyebrow. _Where?_

Bane tapped his index finger. _Where else?_

John crouched down and craned his neck to examine the joint in the wood that Bane was stroking. He didn’t notice anything at first glance, but when Bane moved his finger a little, hooking his nail in the gap where the two pieces of wood joined, John saw it. 

If you weren’t looking for it - really looking for it - it would have been impossible to find. The little black rectangle blended almost seamlessly. John nodded and stood up. 

He tapped his ear. _They’re listening?_

Bane nodded and pointed toward the door. “The grounds here are beautiful. Would you care to see?” 

John shoved his hands in his pockets. “Why the fuck not?” 

*** 

It _was_ beautiful, actually. They’d walked out in silence, giving John plenty of time to look around, even with his brain buzzing with questions. 

The air was humid, thick, and fragrant with the scent of the flowers that boxed him and Bane in on either side of the path. Besides the mansion behind them, and the gazebo off in the distance, it was just flora as far as the eye could see. 

_Be pretty hard to listen in out here._

“So, did she bug the room before or after we got here?” John asked when he couldn’t bear the silence or his curiosity any longer. 

“I doubt there is ever a conversation in that house that is not overheard. She is powerful for a reason.” 

“So where does that leave us?” The words were out of John’s mouth before he could stop the ‘us’. It wasn’t even inaccurate, which was the saddest thing of all. Bane and him were in this together. 

“You want to be more involved. Correct?” 

“I-” John stopped. Did he want to be more involved? Which was worse: sitting passively by and letting this heinous shit happen, or helping out? Was he a victim or an accomplice? 

“What do you want me to do?” 

_This is how it happens. This is how people fall. The fuck would Gordon say? Or Bruce?_

Did it matter? Neither of them were bonded to a Bane. John was a survivor. Fuck them if they couldn’t understand that. 

Bane put a hand on his shoulder and stopped them in the curve of the path. 

“You want to know what is happening, but for now you must understand that it is safer to keep you ignorant. The details are too complicated to be balanced between two minds. I will not ask you to trust me. You have made it clear that that is an impossible request. So, instead, I ask for your patience.” 

John licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. “Until when?” 

“Not long.” 

“And that’s all you want? Patience?” 

Bane shook his head and leaned in closer, until John felt the heat of his body, somehow pleasant, even with the humidity pressing down all around him. 

“No, John. Patience will be next. First, I need you to follow Rostam.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: http://tdkr-kink.livejournal.com/3076.html?thread=2527492#t2527492


End file.
